Fake
by Schizoprenic-Squirrel
Summary: Someone in Domino, Japan, is creating Fakes. But Fakes of what? Vampires. Fakes, created in labs and testing facilities. 'Fakes' are let loose, allowed to run rampant in the city's at night. YGO AU, Puppyshipping Eventually.
1. Begining: Fakes

Yippee, another vampire fic!! This is an idea I've had for some time, and I started to write a story with it a while back, but I abandoned it because I had to much ot do with school and my other stories. So now, it's back, courtesy of the awesome (and second only ot few others, Yu-Gi-Oh! included, of course) Hellsing anime (I haven't bothered ot read the manga yet... --;), which I highly recommend. Guts, blood, and gore galore!! :D

Who doesn't love that??

**Summary!! (Otherwise I'll forget what the plot of the story's about--)--**

**Someone in Domino, Japan, is creating Fakes. But Fakes of what? **

**Vampires. Fakes, created in labs and testing facilities. **

**'Fakes' are let loose, allowed to run rampant in the city's at night, by the 'Mausoleum'. Only to watch them slowly be wiped out by members of the Paladin organization, and then to be replaced by more.**

**Disclaimers:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, or Hellsing, which gave me the idea to write this.

**Fake-**_** OUT!**_

They were _everywhere._ And he _hated_ it! More than anything. Fakes. That's what they were called. Fakes. Seto Kaiba looked at yet another one of them, another 'Fake'. He walked right past it, paying it no mind. It was in the middle of the daytime, he wouldn't have to worry about any of the Fakes until after dark.

That was just as well, to. He had paperwork waiting for him back at his office.

Just another thing that he absolutely hated. Ah, well. The sooner he got back to his office, the sooner the got the paperwork done, the sooner he could just do whatever.

Another Fake.

Mausoleum bastards, mass- producing them.

He watched the little numbers on the digital readout flicker up, up, up, higher, higher, higher, until he reached the floor his office was on.

The thirteenth floor. He had to get those papers signed and done.

**--**

"There. Perfect! Another one. Soon we'll have more than enough!"

A man in a white lab coat turned to a computer, typing in a number sequence.

A woman entered the room, also clad in a white lab coat, with a surgical mask, disposable latex gloves, what appeared to be a shower cap covering her hair, and what looked like white plastic bags on her feet, covering her shoes.

"Is he complete already?" She asked softly, brushing aside a strand or two of jet- black hair peeking out from beneath the elastic band holding the plastic onto her head.

"More than just complete, my dear, he's perfect, in every way. The best 'Fake' we could have created!"

The man pressed the 'Enter' key, smiling. "Now we just watch our little creation come to life, my dear."

They both watched as the 'fake' opened it's eyes, observing the world through irises that were a cross between amber and blood red.

**Seto Kaiba's Office**

Kaiba pushed the huge stack of papers aside, irritated. There was another one. Another fake. He yanked open a drawer, pulling out a gun and a bayonet.

He was going to find out who was making these cheap copy's and put an end to them. _All_ of them. He watched the numbers on the digital readout in the elevator flicker down, down, down, lower, lower, lower. He stormed out of the front of the building, tucking away the gun in a hollister, keeping himself armed with the bayonet. He ignored the odd looks people shot at him, ignored all the whispers about Seto kaiba walking around Domino 'armed with a frickn' bayonet'. Whatever. He had bigger things to worry about, to think about. He walked down an alley, following the scent of the 'Fakes', smelling more and more of them. Were they congregating now? Oh God, no. There was already enough problems with them as it was. Now they were forming congregations!?

No... that wasn't it... they were being manipulated, obviously, by the Mausoleum. To congregate in this one spot. But for what!? Where was the purpose of it all!? Was there any purpose at all?

That really didn't mater now... all that mattered was that he got rid of these stupid Fakes. He could do it in very little time, using only the bayonet. But he really wanted to get some sleep, get this over with. The gun would be better, which left the mystery of why he even got the stupid Bayonet in the first place. He pulled out the gun, seeing a group of 'Fakes' up ahead, laughing, talking. Just acting so... normal.

He observed for a little while, scanning over the scene with cold, emotionless blue eyes and his typical poker face.

They all knew he was there. Even Fakes had the power to tell when a real vampire was there.

One of them turned around, a girl, that had red eyes with hints of blue, and pure black hair that was cut just above her shoulder. She was wearing black tank top (In the middle of winter, no less), and a pair of skinny jeans with black converse Hightops.

"What d' you want?" She asked, emotionless. So she was one of the first fakes... one of the more crude ones. Depending on when Fakes were made, they were either emotionless or could show happiness, sadness, and anger, but all had a fairly large capacity for logical thinking. But there wasn't a Fake that had been made yet that had the complexities of emotions a real human (Or vampire) had. At least, not that he had seen.

"What do you want?" She asked again, this time pulling a gun from the hollister on her hip, aiming it at him.

"Are you here to silence us?"

No answer.

"Can you even talk? You're not even like a real vampire are you? I know your not like us, so why don't you talk?"

All of the others (There were about five or six, including the girl) turned on him, drawing wither bayonets or pistols and even a shotgun.

Were they getting to by that ridiculous?

"Are you mute?"

The girl didn't get to say any more, she was on the ground, dead, in a puddle of her own blood, with the bayonet stuck in her chest beside a huge hole where her heart had been. Kaiba drew the gun, firing five more shots, three deadly, two incapacitating. The shotgun lay two feet from its former owner, smeared in blood.

He _could_ conduct an autopsy here... he had a knife with him and pretty much all of the fakes were dead (He shot the incapacitated ones again, effectively silencing them), he had a knife, there was nobody there. This was a fairly deserted place in Domino, where the old Redlight district used to be, before it was abandoned at the turn of the century, when the Fakes had first been created.

Okay, autopsy it was.

Kaiba pulled out a standard Swiss Army knife, and, kneeling down beside one of the fakes, made an incision running parallel to the jawline, starting behind the ear.

He kept the cut open, wiping away some of the blood spewing from it, and saw something poking out from inside of the cut, a small bit of silver, a corner of something. He pulled it out, observing it. A computer chip. He put the knife away, and, moving the bodies into a pile, pulled out a _Bic _brand lighter and burned them.

He held the computer chip in his hand and rushed away from the acrid smoke, back to his home. Hid brother, Mokuba, was over at a friend's house, seeping over tonight, so he could take a look at the computer ship that made these former humans so... inhuman, for lack of better word.

**--**

The man and woman watched as the 'Fake' opened it's eyes. Red mixed with amber. Perfect.

This Fake would be the first of it's kind! As close to a human in appearance (No pale skin, usually with a bluish tint), and as close to a vampire in it's tendency's.

The fake sat up, looking around, not talking.

"Here, put these on. I'll help." The woman said, handing the fake a pair of Urban Pipeline cargo pants. a clingy white Long- sleeved shirt, and a black T-shirt, with a pair of hiking boots.

After the boy put them on (With the help of the mystery woman), the couple pulled the fake over to a computer screen, watching as the fake looked around, taking in his surroundings. The metal table, the IV equipment, the tray with sharp, deadly- looking medical instruments, a desk, a chair, and a computer.

"Here, look." The woman said kindly, pointing to a screen with six names on it. Two rows of three. The fake observed the words, reading them.

"Pick one out, now." The woman pointed at the screen, while the man remained silent.

Slowly, the fake extended his arm, pointing at one of the names:

_Katsuya Jonouchi_

**End part one!! **

Would that be considered a cliffie? Or not?

Okay, si I've decided to post this, like, right after I've finished the first chapter, BUT! I won't update this story until I have at least six reviews for each chapter. My goal is at least twenty reviews. :D

So:

_**CLICK THE MAGICAL BUISH- PURPLE REVIEW BUTTON!! PLEASE!?**_

_**AND ANY FLAMES POSTED WILL BE USED TO HELP YAMI BAKURA AND YAM MARIK MAKE S'MORES, HOT APPLE CIDER, COFFEE, AND HOT CHOCOLATE. AND THEN I'LL SET THEM LOOSE IN YOUR HOUSE WHILE THEY'RE ON THEIR SUGAR HIGH. :D**_

Thank you all!


	2. Interlude: School

Chapter 02!! ^_^ Yippee!!

I'd really like to thank everyone who reviewed!!

Especially **CoCoBookmark **and **ONIX-21, **for showing incredible enthusiasm and love for the story!!

((Hugs/ offers cookie to all who reviewed))

Disclaimers:

I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! OR Hellsing, which gave me the idea.

**Fake- **_**OUT!**_

**Chapter 2: Beginning- Enter 'Perfection', delay 'Complication'**

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

The shrill whining of the digital alarm clock jerked a brown- haired, blue- eyed CEO out of peaceful sleep. A hand snuck out from underneath white covers and hit the 'Snooze' button with what was probably more force the needed. Kaiba sat up, blinking and trying to snap himself out of the groggy post- sleep, pre- coffee stage.

He _hated_ mornings. With a burning passion. He hated having to go to school. He really didn't see why he had to, when it came to knowledge. But he knew that no High School drop- out would even be considered for running KaibaCorp, the law required all people under the age of seventeen ot go to school at least 170 days a year, and that completing high school was what his adoptive father, Gozaboro (Even _thinking_ his name left a nasty taste behind... _yech!_) had required him to do in his... would you call it a will? Or a last- minute testimony? Whatever it was. Kaiba really didn't care, since he hated the guy anyways.

Dragging himself out of bed, he grabbed a white fluffy towel, one of many in a stack outside the bathroom door, and headed into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

**[-_-_-_-]**

"Here you go. Eat up now, we need you to be strong." The woman said, placing a bowl of red, thick warm liquid in front of the newly christened Katsuya Jonouchi sitting at her table. Instead of her usual lab coat, she was wearing regular street clothes instead of a white, long lab coat, an outfit which consisted of Blue Jeans, a grey t-shirt with purple, swirled designs imprinted on it, and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"What... is this?" Jonouchi asked softly as he picked up a spoon that the woman handed to him. So he had to learn everything from scratch, hm? That was all well and good, but he couldn't learn if he was starved to death.

"It's food. Go on now, eat up."

Jonouchi took one last look at the liquid before setting the spoon down, and slurping the blood right from the bowl, ignoring the bits of it that ran in rivulets down his chin; much like a child slurping milk from his cereal bowl. He finished not a minute later, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve, leaving pale red stains on the white fabric.

"Ahh... You're just like my son! Come on, we'll get you a clean shirt..." She said pulling Jonouchi behind her to go and get another shirt. He was supposed to go to school today. It was going to be a long day. Maybe she'd just download and instal basic Tenth grade vocabulary and be done with it. She beckoned Jonouchi over to the computer, holding up a connector cord.

**[Domino High School-- Tenth Grade hall, Room 12 B]**

"H- hello Kaiba- Sama!!"

"Good Morning, Kaiba- Sama!!"

"Ah, Kaiba- Sama! Good morning!"

"Hello, Kaiba- Sama!!"

Every day, since he enrolled in High School, fangirls galore were always bidding him 'Good Morning' and 'Good Afternoon' and asking him out on dates. It aggravated him to no end. Sometimes he just wanted to run back home and just lay in bed all day away from the stupid fangirls and his job. Ah, well. You put up with the world and do the best you can. He kept his best poker face on, ignoring all the stupid chattering girls (And occasional boy), and glaring, jealous boys.

He sat down at his seat in the back of the class, pulling out 'The Jungle'.

It would have disturbed him greatly had not the FDA already been established.

Thank god for that.

Not long after the bell rang, and the five minutes after it rang again. And so started class. The teacher walked in, her high- heel stiletto shoes clicking on the tile floor. Their teacher was unusually nice for someone who worked at the local high school. She was tall, almost as tall as Kaiba, with long red hair, brown eyes, and wore a business suit. Not a woman's business suit, but a man's business suit, with a pair of stiletto high heels. She wore her hair up in a half- ponytail, and a pair of reading glasses.

"Okay, class! Quiet down, now." She said with a smile, "Today, we have a brand- new student! So, let's make him feel welcome, okay?"

Cheery, unlike usual. She must have had less coffee than she normally did. She was usually fairly hyper.

"Let's all welcome," She looked down at a piece of paper on his desk, "Katsuya Jonouchi! He'll be part of our class starting today!"

A boy with blond hair that was almost down to his shoulders and that almost covered amber- red eyes walked into the class. He had slightly pale skin, which contrasted with his dark T-shirt, which he was wearing on top of a white long- sleeve, form- fitting shirt and cargo pants, with hiking boots. He smiled a little, looking right at... Kaiba.

Was it a fake? Probably not; Kaiba thought to himself; His skin isn't pale enough, and his eyes aren't the right color. Best just to let it go. Not everyone who transferred was a fake.

"Don't just stand there. Introduce yourself to the class!" The teacher said.

He looked a little afraid at first, but then spoke up; "I'm Katsuya Jonouchi. I'm fifteen yeas old. I'm from Hiroshima." This earned a round of quiet talking from the class.

_Hiroshima?_

_Maybe he inherited radiation sickness. _

_I don't wanna get sick!_

_I hope he's not infected with anything..._

"My family didn't move there until two years ago, you don't have to worry about radiation sickness or anything. My dad worked for the Military, until recently. So we traveled a lot. I really like to play american football, my record for the forty- yard dash is 4.5 seconds."

Another round of whispers.

_American football?_

_Who play's that?_

_4.5 seconds... He has _got_ to join the track team._

"Um... that's kinda all you need to know about me." He said, turning slightly pink.

The sentence- _Heheh.. How cute... _Ran through Kaiba's head, and then; _Did I really just think that?_

"Alright, Katsuya- kun... You can sit by Kaiba!!" The teacher said cheerily.

"Uh.. Alright." The blonde moved to take his seat smiling at the brunette as he sat down.

"Hey." He said, sticking out his hand, "Nice to meet you, Kaiba- kun."

Kaiba stared at he boy's hand for a second before shaking it much like he would with a business partner.

Katsuya smiled at him again before turning towards the front to pay attention.

"Alright, class. Today, principal Smith- sensei has told us to start with math today. I asked for english, because I know how much you all like The Mousetrap, but he stuck us with Algebra anyways. So, this morning, we'll be talking about graphs!"

The class was somewhat relieved by this statement, but they still groaned. All except Kaiba and Katsuya.

"Oh, come on. I know, it's not all that exciting. But it's nothing you guy's haven't done before."

Those were the worst fifty- five minutes of anyone's life. Even if they _had_ done graphs in middle just made it worst, anyways. Break time rolled around soon, at eleven- thirty exactly. Like it always did. And thank god, to. No more idiotic lessons for half an hour. Time enough to finish reading The Jungle. It was really quite gruesome. It made one thankful for the FDA.

"What're you reading?" A voice asked, before a mass of blonde hair appeared beside his shoulder.

"Do you mind?" He asked bitterly, moving away from the blonde that had so rudely invaded his personal space.

"Oh... sorry..." Jou said, moving away, before ducking his head to see the title.

"The Jungle? What's it about?" He asked, moving to sit up.

"It's about how the Government lacked the intelligence to form the Food and Drug Administration, and because of their lack of intelligence on the matter, they allowed countless meat packing companies to get away with packaging unsanitary, disgusting food for people to eat. Therefore causing them to fall ill."

Kaiba explained, not looking up. "Are you done irritating me? Or has your appetite for exasperating me not been satiated?"

"Geez, you don't have to be so cold, you know." Jou frowned, "So... what kind of things did they put in the food?"

Kaiba's eye twitched. This idiot seriously did not know when to just leave people alone.

"Will you please go away and leave me in peace?"

"O- oh... sorry. I've never really gotten to know anyone real well, y'know?"

"That's not my problem, is it?"

"No, I guess not. But seriously, you could just lighten up. You're like Johnny Raincloud."

"Johnny raincloud, hm? Good. Someone on this earth has to be serious and down- to- earth."

Jonouchi scowled, sticking out his tongue.

"Well, bleh to you!"

"'Bleh?'" Kaiba asked, returning to his book.

"Yes, _bleh!_ Bleh to you, bleh to your stupid book, and bleh ot your cold indifference!!" Jonouchi slumped down in his seat, P.O.'d.

_"Man... I don't know anyone here... and the guy sitting next ot me is a total... I can't even thing of the words!!"_ He thought.

"Aw, man, That _stadium rocks!!_" A voice said. Kaiba kept on reading his book, but Jou turned to see a fairly tall girl with waist- length strawberry blonde hair (More strawberry than blonde) punching the air.

She turned around and walked over to Jonouchi, smiling brightly. She was dressed in cargo pants and a black long- sleeved T- shirt with a white T- shirt over it and hiking boots.

"Hey, you're the new guy, right?" She asked.

"Uh... yea... I was kinda introduced this morning..."

"Yea, didn't hear, sorry... kinda took a snore- fest..."

"Oh. Well, um, I'm Katsuya Jonouchi, I moved here from Hiroshima, and I like to play american football." Jonouchi said.

"I'm Batchi!" The girl said, sticking out her hand.

Jou took it, shaking her hand and feeling kinda awkward.

"Nice to meet you..." He said.

"Little shy, huh?" Batchi asked, grinning.

"Hey, miss eccentric!" A voice said, before a (somewhat) pale had grabbed Batchi's hair and tugged on it.

"OW! Hey, man, _not cool!!_ Ow ow ooowww!!"

The person pulling her hair, who Jou would later know was Bakura, was tall, almost six feet, and had white hair that was a little over shoulder- length, brown- red eyes, and was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, with a pair of combat boots.

"Shut up, you."

"Make me!"

"You two are friends?" Jou asked skeptically.

"In a way." Batchi answered.

"I'm more of her babysitter than her friend."

"More like my mom rather than my babysitter!"

"Yea, right!"

"Yea, _Right_!"

The two of them went back and forth, and Jonouchi watched in a certain amount of amusement.

"Will you two _please __**shut up**_!"

Everyone looked towards Kaiba, who had slammed his book shut and was glaring at them. Batchi and Bakura seemed unfazed, Jonouchi moved bak a little.

"Dude, chill." Batchi waved him away. Jonouchi just stare dat him, slightly surprised at the shouting.

"Heh heh. Kaiba needs to get _laid_." Bakura grinned evilly, chuckling.

"Maybe Jou-chan can do it!" Batchi added. s

"Hey!"

"If I _did_ get laid, it would be by someone much better than him." Kaiba pointed out coldly.

"Yes, I'd say that they like each other!"

"Very much indeed!"

"Will you two _**shut up **__**please**_!?!?" Seto and Jou shouted in unison.

"Why should we?"

"Because you are embarrassing me _and_ the KaibaCorp name by doing so."

"Because now I'm embarrassed!"

"Yea, whatever! We're all embarrassed here!" Batchi said.

"All right, everyone back to their seats! We have to start science!" The teacher announced.

Cue big groan from class.

**[[3:25 PM]]**

"Alright! So! We can't just let Jou- chan become part of the 'Go home after school' club--" Batchi announced to the five students sitting in the class before her.

Yuugi, Anzu, Tristan, Bakura, and Ryou. Seto had long since gone home.

"SO! In light of that, he is _officially_ a part of our club! That is, if he's voted in, of course. So, all in favor?"

Five hands. Yuugi, Anzu, Tristan, Ryou, and Batchi. Bakura fall asleep and was snoring loudly.

"Okay, so, five out of six are in favor, one out of six is snoring loud as can be."

"Bakura! Wake up!" Ryou gently nudged him in the ribs.

"Wwwhhhyyyyyy.........?"The albino whined, setting his head on the desk.

"Because this is important. Now pay attention!"

"Okay, so, aside from Bakura's lack of care, we have a new club member! So let's welcome him!" Batchi smirked.

"Um... well, what're the rules? I mean like, what do you guys do?" Jou asked.

"Well, basically, we stay after school and play games."

"Games?"

"Yea, and then the loser has to play a punishment game!"

"Be careful not to loose, Jou," Yuugi smiled, "Batchi-san's punishment games are tough!"

"Thanks for the tip..."

Batchi walked over to a cabinet in the back of the class, opening the door and rummaging through it. She eventually stood up and held a deck of cards in her hand.

"We're playing Rich Man, Poor man today!" She said.

"Yay...?"

**[-_-_-_-]**

"Why are you home late, Katsuya?" A woman with black hair scolded the boy, who stood in front of her with his head bowed, guilty of her accusations.

"And with _sharpie_ all over your face! _Sharpie! What _in the name of_ God _am I going to do with you if you get sharpie on your face!?"

"I'm in a club at school with some new friends I made, and we played a card game. I lost, so I had to play a punishment game... so I got drawn on." Jou explained sheepishly.

"Well, it's good that you've made friends and are in a club, but seriously, don't let them color on your face. Or at least don't loose." The woman grimaced, shaking her head.

"Go wash it off and get cleaned up, you're going hunting tonight."

"Hunting...?"

"Yes, according to the professor, it's time for you to get out and hunt. You're old enough--"

"But I'm only a few days old! Compared to everyone else, that's still a little kid!"

"I _know_! But I can't help it at all, okay? It's not my orders, it's not for me to decide," She leaded down until she was at eye- level with the youth, "It's not my decision, okay? If it were up to me, you wouldn't be doing this until you were healthy enough. But it's not for me to decide, okay? So buck up, alright?"

"Yea, I got it. Don't worry, I'll be fine..."

"Okay, now go get cleaned up, alright?"

"Okay."

**[Downtown Domino, 11:33]**

He stood stationary atop the building, watching the people mill about below, enthralled in the nightlife of the red light district. Prostitutes, hookers, they were everywhere. Normal. Normal people were normal.

_Am I the only abnormality...?_

One final look, before turning and jumping down into a dark, secluded space behind his perch. All he had to do was wait behind some trash cans or something, until someone came along. His stomach grumbled in a rather loud, unpleasant way.

_Darnit..._

Waiting... waiting... wouldn't _somebody_ walk by already!?

A couple walked past, obviously drunk, laughing and swaying into each other.

He licked his lips, grinning.

His vision had changed. It wasn't what any normal person wold see anymore. It was shapes made of all kinds of colors, with a reddish tint to them, and slightly blurred around the edges.

He didn't wait for them to pass.

_Pay the toll..._

**End Ch.2**

Omigod!! I can't believe it took me THIS LONG to update this story!!! xP

Hopefully, updates'll come faster now that it's the end of the school year.

_**CLICK THE MAGICAL BUISH- PURPLE REVIEW BUTTON!! PLEASE!?!?**_

_**AND ANY FLAMES POSTED WILL BE USED TO HELP YAMI BAKURA AND YAM I MARIK MAKE S'MORES, HOT APPLE CIDER, COFFEE, AND HOT CHOCOLATE. AND THEN I'LL SET THEM LOOSE IN YOUR HOUSE WHILE THEY'RE ON THEIR SUGAR HIGH. :D**_

Thank you all!^^


	3. Sonata: Work and Home

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

Ok, so, I've been inactive on here since, like, last year (Except for my story "Schutzstaffel"- go read it if you like WWII stories and yaoi and tell me how I did!), so I'm updating "Fake-OUT since… I really like that story. :P

Sorry for my uber-late updativeness.

**Fake- **_**OUT!**_

**Chapter 3: Sonata- News Monster**

_"…veryone is uneasy and the feeling is only rising as the Domino City Police Department make no comment and have released no information as to the gruesome crime scene discovered early this morning, choosing to enact a media black-out policy. Here, in the city's red-light district, a young couple has been found, cruelly and gruesomely slaughtered…."_

Kaiba turned the volume on the TV up, turning all his attention to the news program.

_"The young woman who discovered the crime scene described it as 'A horrible thing to see- like pictures of the holocaust, but real.' It is speculated that this murder is connected to a string of homicides that have been committed over the past ten years or so. The prime suspects in these murders? A mysterious, ruthless gang of thugs whom many say call themselves 'Fakes'. Whether this is fact or pure speculation remains to be seen, as the DCPD refuse to release any information to the press, or to comment on such a matter…"_

The green bars went down, down, to the "U" on "VOLUME." Kaiba was secretly fuming to himself. How could he have missed that! He should have delayed the business meeting until next week! He should have waited to feed, but he didn't… He felt like fool for it. A young, inexperienced fool.

But he had to set aside his self-loathing for another time. It was a Saturday, and a rare free one at that. A teacher work day. He had forgotten about it. Good thing, to. Nothing scheduled, nothing planned, other than a quick little trip down, and then it was back up to hunt down the killer.

**[Below Kaiba-Corp Tower]**

The elevator dipped below the main lobby, all the way down into the granite bedrock. Kaiba frowned. He would have to get some new elevator music. The doors 'dinged' open, showing a long hallway, lit with bright fluorescents. He would have to change those, too. They were getting a bit too bright. Maybe some of those dimmer energy-savers…

The hallway lead to a large set of steal double-doors, locked with a state-of-the-art pneumatic security system and electrified lightning-tube cores that shocked anyone who tried to access this area without proper authorization. For official employees, there was a small tub full of liqui-metal, reading his (ever so nonexistent) pulse, checking his fingerprints. There was also a retinal-scan, and voice recognition. For those special visiting out-of-towners, there was a card slot and a keypad. Less hassle.

The doors crackled with the sound of discharging electricity and the door slid apart with a _hisssss_, revealing a state-of-the-art lab inside, and two figures hunched over a work table at the end of the room. C.A. Rotwang and Franz Alder. An insane inventor and a top medical scientist. The best of the best, of course. He walked up to the table, attracting the attention of both scientists as the sound of his footsteps echoed across the epoxy-gloss floor.

"Anything _new_ you need today, sir? A rocket? A _Maschine-Mensch_?" asked Rotwang, cold sarcasm and biting cynicism in every word.

"Not unless you developed anything new," Seto replied "No, what i need for now is just-"

"The meds, got it." Franz cut in, reading his mind, walking over to a place in the corner and pressing the button on a small remote. A tube, metal on both ends and glass all around the middle, full of tiny vial of anti-freeze colored liquid. The scientist pulled a bottle out, handing it to the CEO.

"One half of a bottle, and you're good to go for 24 hours, _herr Kaiba_."

Seto took the vial and downed half of it, screwing the cap back on. He turned to leave, but stopped as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Remember to take a break in-between doses, okay." Not a doctor's suggestion, a doctor's order.

"I'll be okay, _Herr Alder_. It's worked so far."

"But the formula isn't perfect; you keep taking this and it could kill you."

"Without it, acting normal could kill me. Sunlight can kill me. Wooden stakes through my heart can kill me. This can't."

"Yes, it can. If you keep taking unrestrained doses of it, it could trigger a regression. The reaction would kill you."

Kaiba looked at the scientist with uncaring eyes.

"I'll be fine; I don't recall you ever being this concerned about my well-being, and I certainly don't remember paying you for it. When have you gained such interest, _Herr Alder_?"

The german shot back an almost identical look, maybe with a bit more ire. A lighter, almost colder shade of ice-blue.

"If you died, sir, then who would write my paychecks?"

There was a cold silence, before Kaiba laughed a little.

"That is true. I'm paying you to experiment on me, aren't I? I would be glad to have such a willing guinea pig while it lasts, Alder, other than the emaciated concentration-camp denizens you had before. They barely lasted a month, correct?"

"Well then maybe you shouldn't trust me with this," Franz challenged back.

"And yet I am. I am putting my life- or lack thereof- into your hands, Alder. You would have been incarcerated and executed by American forces if I had not pulled strings for you and kept you alive. Or would you rather go and visit your significant other in the netherworld? That can be easily arranged. Your preserved flesh bones would turn to dust in an instant," His eyes narrowed "Stay back, Alder, and don't give me advice I don't need. I pay you to work, not to care." With that, he turned and left, cold doors hissing shut behind him and electricity humming back to life.

Franz walked back to the table, rubbing his head.

"He'll kill himself."

Rotwang looked at him, oddly amused.

"Is it that you have feelings for our employer," he asked, his mouth forming something between a grin and a grimace.

"No, I have feelings for my paycheck and our budget to make all this stuff. I have feeling for my prolonged life," Franz turned to the diagram on the table and resumed some calculations.

Beside him, Rotwang chuckled darkly.

"As do I, my friend, as do I…"

**[Domino City Streets]**

He was just heading out the door. _Just heading out the door_. And the secretary at the desk called him back, telling him that business partner had rescheduled a meeting. Not even eleven o'clock, and his patience was wearing extremely thin. Kaiba simply snapped at the secretary to tell the master of Metropolis that he was indisposed at the moment before angrily marching out the doors, squinting into the harsh mid-morning sunlight. There would be no cars today. No, today he felt he should walk.

He turned out onto the main street, hoping that his everyday attire of a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans would be enough to help him blend in and stay away from fangirls and such.

The casual walk almost instantly turned into a quick and purposeful stride. Down, down, down to the redlight district. Maybe he should catch a train, after all, it would make things faster. Only one or two stops. No, he decided, too many people, and it's been to long since I've stretched my legs. The district was only a few blocks away, anyhow. He ducked into an alleyway a block or two before his destination, weaving through the dirty, dank, hidden veins of Domino. He quickly found a fire escape wit ha lowered ladder, and climbed up. On a rooftop, to too far from the streets but far enough away to where nobody would see him without hard observation. Quickly, he slithered across the buildings, rooftop to rooftop; run-jump-run-jump, until he finally spotted the crime scene. Surrounded by police. Of course. But what was life without a challenge? A distraction, he needed a- his thoughts were stopped by the sound of yelling. Looking to his left, he saw to men, probably in rival gangs, starting to fight. Perfect. Who said divine providence didn't exist? (Well, it did for Seto Kaiba) This was distraction enough. The police ran over to control the crowd, leaving only one cop guarding each end. No problem. He dropped down into the alleyway, quiet as can be. Now for a paralytic. A small needle, with diluted venom from a sydney tunnel-spider. One quick prick in the neck and… One down, now two. perfect. The needles were really _quite_ the ingenious tool. He'd have to thank Rotwang later. Now, onto the crime scene.

The two victims, a woman and a man, arms still tangled together and hands clasped, both their necks torn open at the side, creating gaping, ugly gashes- windows to see into the tangled human throat, all complete with a red, dripping background. Blood. The girl on the TV was right, it really was gruesome. And the blood… lots of blood… Kaiba put a hand over his nose and mouth, blocking the thoughts best he could. He was here on business, and he only had two minutes or so to complete it. But all the blood… all the _blood_…

He leaned down next to the corpses to get a better look. The flesh was grey and cold-looking, not what someone would expect from what looked like slashed throats. A fake, or a vampire could make a wound look this way… a fake, probably… no other vampire in their right minds would hunt here- drugs, alcohol, invading people's systems and curdling the blood… _blood…._ And the gashes alone told everything… a newborn. Not a vampire newborn, controlled and trained, but a newborn fake. Out alone, killing people; Messily, at that, leaving behind all the _blood_…

That was it. He had to leave. Now. His self-control was slipping, and his resolve crumbling, no matter how much he tried to stifle it. He hadn't fed in _days_… and here, here there was _blood_; cold, yes, but in the open, in a place where nobody would, could, miss it…

He was distracted by a vibration in his pocket and a polyphonic ringing. Oh, god… The venom had worn off a bit. The two officers were moving their heads side to side. Conscious of the noise behind them, not able to turn their heads or move their bodies to address it. He darted out from behind the guard at the end of the alley, running as fast as he could to get away from them, trying not to be seen. As soon as he rounded a corner, he whipped out his cellphone, still ringing, and snapped it open.

"_Yes? Who is this? What is it?" _He barked sharply into the phone.

_"Seto Kaiba?"_

_"_Yes. How did you get this number, its is a secure line-"

_"I'm from the organization, you twit! The Paladins!"_

Wonderful…

"Yes, yes, okay… What is it?"

_"We have a meeting scheduled as soon as you decide to attend them and __**not blow off your business partners when they re-schedule a meeting!**__"_

That's who it was, this morning… Crud. Why didn't he just go to the meeting?

"I apologize. I had some… important things to take care of."

_"So do we, Kaiba. Like the crime scene you blew us off for. Twit! Do you think that was smart! We know you haven't fed in days, do you really think that you should have gone to that place?"_

"My deepest apologies. I was not aware I had to wait for permission from the organization to try and observe."

_"Observe my ass! Just get back to your business tower, Kaiba, and get to the conference room, as fast as your supernatural legs can carry you, understand?"_

"I'll do my best to make it," Kaiba ground out, rubbing his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut in annoyance. "Who is this?

_"…This is the Imperator Romanorum, you twit."_

Godammit.

"Okay. Okay, I'll get there as fast as I can."

He snapped the phone shut and buried it back in his pocket, moving his hand up to his mouth and feeling his teeth shift and grow into fangs.

"And Franz said the medicine would stop that… better hurry up and fix it…." he muttered, getting on his way.

**[KaibaCorp Tower - Conference Room]**

The _Imperator Romanorum_… god dammit. That was great. Probably brought all the other higher-ups along…Great. Peachy. Awesome. He could deal with that… fora few minutes, at least.

The conference room chosen was the best- the one on the 54th floor. One wall all glass, looking out on the eastern skyline of the city. Usually the view was beautiful; looking down on the city, with a blue sky overhead, and it almost seemed like you were the sun…

Over the course of the last ten or so minutes, the sky had gone cloudy. Thunder rumbles in the distance. It sounded a thousand times louder to Seto's ears. There was oak paneling on the walls, pine hardwood floors, and twenty or so leather chairs situated around a large, oval-shaped glass table.

The _Imperator Romanorum, _with her short, pink hair and sweatshirt and jeans was there, and Seto was right- the _Rex Francorum, _with her long brown hair and sundress and the _Rex Langobardorum, _with her medium-long red hair and army uniform were there as well, standing by the window. Illustrious titles they all held- The three women who ran the Paladin organization, who bore the title of kings, with no real names here, and not much older than he himself should be- sixteen, maybe seventeen. There were others as well-

A woman sitting in one of the chairs, long, wavy blonde hair and classical navy jacket, and two people behind her- A boy, pale skin, dark eyes and hair, and a man in a pastors outfit. They had a laptop set out on the glass before them, the static-filled window of a video-conference screen taking up the entire screen of it. Six others in the room, all waiting, some patiently, some not, for his arrival. Well, here he was.

He quickly walked up to the table, taking the seat at the head of it.

"Well? What is this all about?" He asked, tapping his fingers on the table impatiently.

"The recent activity in the mausoleum. They're creating them again, and this time it's something big." The Imperator Romanorum spoke up, her eyes never leaving the skyline.

"Really? Do enlighten me- how big is it? Two homicides big, or just another rumor?"

"You wouldn't give a rat's ass over those two if it didn't disturb you in some way, and I doubt it was the gore!" The blonde girl sitting at the table spoke up. For a foreigner, she spoke japanese well.

"I don't believe I've had knowledge of your activity here. Who are you?" Seto asked impatiently.

"Vatican Special Forces- Black ops agent, Leda." She answered.

"And your companions?"

"Hiram and Father Jobe, the second father this month."

"What happened to the first?"

"I killed him."

There was a rather pressing silence for a little while afterwards.

"You… killed him? And still remained in the Vatican?"

"He was possessed by a Pride demon. It was nasty business."

"We have more pressing matters to attend to!" Father Jobe spoke up "The Pope could not attend himself, but if we can get a signal through on the computer… Of course, the Vatican isn't officially a part of the Paladin organization- but we are united in just cause."

Leda tapped few keys on the computer, when she turned the screen to face them, the Pope's face smiled out at them.

_"Good day to you all,"_ He nodded.

"All right, enough chatter. What did you come here for?" Seto said. "Cut to the point. I do not have all day."

"Like I said, the Mausoleum is up to something big. They're still manufacturing fakes, but they have something new," The Rex Francorum spoke up. "I'm sure you know there's a new fake, a new… species, if you want. I'm sure you've seen the result of it."

"The murders…" _still remember all the blood, the blood…_

"Yes, but also the physical look. We planted an organic bug in a place we suspected was a mausoleum laboratory, and We managed to get these photos-" The Francorum paused and pulled an envelope out of her bag and placed them on the table. "We believe that they also have a new scientist to head their projects."

The picture looked like it was from a CCTV camera, but with amazing quality. A person in a lab coat was standing in the upper- right hand corner, his head cut out of the picture. A woman in the middle, with a black ponytail loosely held up in a surgeon's cap, holding a menacing-looking syringe. They were around what looked like a CT scanner, a pale, naked body laying on the tray, upper torso obscured by the a loose plastic cocoon. This was a Fake being born. For some reason, this seemed to… simple to Kaiba. He imagined the process to have more test tubes and needles and wires.

"It looks like any other fake," Leda said, leaning back in her chair, unimpressed. "But we still have to assume it's worse. We don't know what these mausoleum bastards are doing or what they want. The only chance we have of beating them is over-estimating them. Do you have any more bugs?"

The Langobardorum shook her head.

"No. One picture only. Then, after sending the picture to one of our people, it disintegrates. It's a big risk; and there's a low success rate."

Leda studied the picture more,squinting, trying to make out obscure details.

"Hey, the woman in the middle here, didn't she used to work for us? Wasn't she the last maglightum?"

"Yes," The Romanorum said, nodding. "She went turncoat about three years ago, the ignorant little twit."

"Is this all we're going to do here?" Kaiba asked, standing "Because if so, I have more important things to attend to."

"No! You will _shut up_ and _sit down_, you twit! This could determine the outcome of a conflict that has been going on since before were all born!" The Romanorum shouted at him, pounding her fist on the table. She locked eyes with Kaiba, staring him down and wielding all the power her title commanded. "You are to find out who this fake is, and what it is. Once you do that, incarcerate it. Make it talk. If it knows anything, we want every last bit of information there is. You are going to be our main contact here in Japan. This entire operation, his war, does not move forward without you. I trust that you will do this, and do it well. You are the key to all of this. If you fail, not only will the world be lost to demons and these self-righteous bastards, but everything you have worked for and everything you value; your brother, your company, your life, will be stripped down to threads and burned." She stood back up, her eyes never leaving his.

Seto sat there, pensive.

"And what makes you think that I can be coerced into this? I have worked along with this organization since before any of you were even thought of, If you want me to work with you, I should be setting the terms."

"You will do what we say," The Romanum said, walking around the table to tower over him "Because we set you up with this life. Memory implants are wonderful things, but fickle in the hands of the right person. Your scientist Rotwang is a wonderful example of a man who can control the mind through this. You don't follow through, and we strip you of everything. You little brother will be gone, your company will fall into ruin, and you will be left with nothing. No name, no records, and no memories yourself."

"Threatening someone to do your dirty work? Good job. Glad to know that you're so persuasive."

The Romanum smiled.

"Anything to win a war."

And with that, she walked out of the room, the Langobardorum and Francourum following. The Vatican agents left as well, Leda handing him a card.

"Keep in touch."

The door shut behind him, leaving him alone in the room. Outside, it had started to rain heavily. Thunder boomed, making Seto wince and feel as though his eardrums would burst. He watched as infinite drops of rain pelted the glass like so many bullets, the entire time seeing red.

**[-_-_-_-]**

Jou stumbled around the clean white hallways, still trying to wipe the already-cleaned blood off his mouth. He was tired, but he couldn't sleep. He was hungry, but he couldn't eat. He was thirsty, but he refused to drink.

_The woman had said what a spectacle he was when he returned, and the man in the lab coat praised him. He didn't feel like he deserved praise. The lab-coat man said she should feel proud, that he was a success! He wondered why he wasn't feeling so. _

_The woman explained that it was a 'conscious…' something that was fickle and weak but nescicariy to maintaing the facade._

_"What facade?"_

_"That your'e human, that your'e like them." She explained as she cleaned him up._

_"Am I? Should I be?" He asked, uncertain._

_"No! You're better, your advanced, you're new." She smiled up at him like a doting mother. "You're a wonderful boy."_

_"Is it good that I did what I did?"_

_"Yes."_

_He looked unconvinced. The woman crouched down below him, making an exaggerated puzzled face, as if one would with a child._

_"…I don't know what he's doing," she said at last, standing up. "You have the physical maturity you need, but mentally you're no more than a child!"_

_She took his hand, leading him to the kitchen. "How about we have a treat?" She smiled._

_"A treat..?"_

_"You know, like Ice cream."_

_"Yeah… ice cream…"_

The word 'treat' brought on vague images. They filled up his mind and he tried to figure each one out, as he staggered down, down, down, along the maze of corridors.

There was a woman… and a little girl… both smiling and playing in a park, like a… like a… every time he got close to the words, they left him, flitting out beyond his reach.

_He looked at the scoops of semi-solid, dense white cream in the bowl he held. The woman was sitting with him, happily eating spoonfuls of it._

_"Go on," she said, putting another spoonful in her mouth._

_It wasn't red, like the blood he drank all the time… maybe he would like his. The woman seemed to… she almost seemed like his _ _ _ _ _ _._

_He took a bite, and discovered he did like it, but not more than the blood. He ate another spoonful, smiling a bit._

_"Good?" The woman, his _ _ _ _ _ _ asked. He nodded, smiling at her._

He felt a bit dizzy, leaning up against the wall like that, closing his eyes and not bothering to balance on his feet… did he really consider the woman his… what was the word? It floated out of his grasp time and time again… and there was something holding onto it, fluttering behind it- his brain started to hurt just thinking about it.

_Half way through the bowl of ice cream, his stomach seized. He felt sick. _

_Running over to the sink, he bent over it and wretched, a white, creamy licit coming up instead of the red stuff._

_He felt a hand on his back, and looked over to the his _ _ _ _ _ _ there, looking at him worriedly,urging him to 'get it all out if he needed to.'_

_He quickly turned back to the sink and wretched again, and again, until there was no more of it in his stomach. He stood there, breathing heavily for what seemed like such a long time, trying to suck in air which he knew he did not really need, feeling the syrupy creme dribble down his chin. He felt terrible. _

_He quickly turned the tap on, splashing water into his face to get it off. Beside him, a torn-open plastic bad was being held._

_He took it, greedily drinking, marveling at the relief it offered, the coolness and the warmth and that clean feeling, all at the same time._

_Quickly finishing it, he set the plastic down and staggered out,feeling worse than ever. _

There was a door at the end of the hallway. 11811. That was him. His number. He stumbled in, taking his clothes off until he stood in his boxers, and collapsed on the bed, berthing heavily and feeling cold, sticky sweat all over his skin. Closing his eyes, there was a projection of the man and woman, both dead, in the back of his mind. Over an over again, the words 'kill', 'conscious,' '_ _ _ _ _ _' and '_ _ _ _' fluttered in and out of his mind. And the fuzzy pictures and the image of the boy from school, Kaiba… He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his head in the soft pillow. So tired, so tired. He was so tired, but he could not sleep.

**[End ch. 3]**

Well! I haven't updated this in… gosh, a year or so? I kind of lost touch with the core of it, so tell me if I had a triumphant return or not! **That means you review. With all your heart.**

This chapter piddles a bit, I think, but what it sets up is essential!

The Names of the three Paladin officials are from the names Charlamagne used to have (That idea stemmed from the fact that Paladins were apparently the highest rank of knight in Charlamagne's court. Clever, eh?)

Franz is my own creation. You can read his 'character profile' of sorts in my story "Schutzstaffel." How he got from the past to this time in Domino city is that, during the Nuremburg trials, Kaiba pulled many strings to keep him alive and in his custody, using a kind of 'human preservation system' to keep him perpetually ageless for all these years.

POINTS TO THOSE WHO KNOW WHAT ROTWANG IS FROM. x33

"_Maschine-Mensch" _ is German for "Machine Man," a reference to the robot Futura (Or Maria), a direct reference to the creation Rotwang is known for. :P

…Man, I'm on such a mad-science kick now.

: |

Yay?


	4. Overture: Blood Letting

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

Moar moar moar writing, wut? Seto's probably gonna kill someone, he's so bloodthirsty (That didn't sound right. : | )

Bloodshed, anyone?

:3

Also, there might be more Franz and Rotwang in this chapter, and maybe a mention of Erich (Franz's Luv-). :D yursh.

Now if I can only get my puppy to stop trying type with her mouth. D:

**Chapter Four: Overture- The Art of Blood Letting**

Morning. Damned morning. It came to quickly. Jou breathed in as many lung-fulls of air as he could in a short time, his eyes not wanting to open. They felt gummy, and gross. He turned on his back, stretching and arching his chest up, groaning. He rolled out of bed, landing with a dull 'whump' on the floor, still curled up. Sun peaked through the little gaps in the curtains, landing on Jou's bare arms. It felt warm… too warm… there was a slight smell of something burning… burning… meat? There wasn't any meat or anything… His arm cringed, the skin fluctuating and contracting. He cracked open his eyes and quickly squeezed them shut. Boiling flesh on his arm… he didn't want deal with it right now. Boiling flesh… Oh, god! He jerked up, yelling as some of the sun hit his eyes, hurrying to scramble into the shadows. The arm still cringed, the flesh still moved. Trying to knit itself together around the cauterized flesh and failing, failing, failing. There was a slight red streak across his eyes, healing quickly.

He got up, walking along to the closet at the far end of the room, sliding the panel-door aside and carefully shrugging on a pair of jeans. He grabbed a shirt, shrugging it on, making sure it hid the burn; still trying in vain to knit itself together. Stumbling back into the hallway, he waked up to the living spaces. Nobody was there. He walked around a bit, before going to the refrigerator. Opening it, he saw multiple packages of blood. There was a rumbling deep in his stomach. He grabbed one of them, catching a flash of a letter, O- something, and quickly ripped it open and drank it. He felt stronger after that, he felt full. Physically, anyway. Mentally he felt… slow. Ever-tired. But replenished, at least. He didn't know what made him do it, but he wrenched open the door and stepped outside. The sun shone straight down on him from it's midday position. He reveled in the warmth as it hit his skin, smiling to it. It didn't burn him this time.

He wan't totally sure of where to go from here- there were tall buildings all around him. The left, maybe. And now a right… and another left… left, left, left, right. Taking random turns. He thought he heard people over there… follow the noise, follow the noise, like some weird version of follow-the-leader. He thought he heard it here… then there… and over there… there was a glint of light to his left. He followed it. The light got bigger and bigger, swallowing him, and spitting him back out on the streets. There was so many things! Street vendors, people, cafes, restaurants, shops! He had never had the chance to see Domino like this before- to explore it! He felt like… what were they?… Pioneers! Like the pioneers; he remembered that data downloaded into his brain- they were explorers! Looking around to decide where to go next, a building caught his eye- tall, reflective. Unlike any building he had seen before. It was like the city decided to reach a hand into the sky- to make something so magnificent, something to outstrip all the other buildings around it. It would stop growing on the ground, it would instead colonize the sky. Sure, that one over there looked nice, but it remained tethered to the earth, unmoving, squatting on the ground. He looked up at the top of it- KC was hung in large letters at the top of the tower. KC… It was vaguely familiar. He made up his mind. He would go there. It wasn't that far away, anyways. Only a few blocks. He started to run.

Unfortunately, he almost ran right into a heavily-trafficked road, almost getting ran over. An angry driver honked his car horn at him, startling him into jumping back on the curve. He heard the driver mutter "Nut job" to himself as he drove away. Jou looked around again. There, at the corner, where all the people were standing, watching the road and waiting. As the hanging lights changes from green to red, the started to walk across. Jou quickly ran to join them,making a beeline for the other sidewalk. There was the building, to his right. And the turnoff, to his left, as the street bent back towards it. He followed the tarmac snake until he came to an intersection. More people waiting, more lights changing, and more crossing. Towards the tower again! He was almost there… one more turn, it looked like. To the right. He now saw that, in front of the building, there were two statues- both of a type of mythical creature… a dragon, he thought it was, framing the way to the entrance, guarding it. He stepped cautiously between them, heading up the pathway, jumping over the steps to the revolving glass door in the front. Inside, it was cool. The room was a semi-circle, all glass, with wood veneer at the back wall. In front of it, a granite reception desk (Also semi-circular) sat between two elevator doors. The room had a smattering of comfortable looking chairs and tables, and a few well-placed pieces of greenery. Jou looked back to the desk again. Barricaded behind it was a young woman, her black hair pulled up in a ponytail, speaking into a headset. Jou walked up to the desk, patiently waiting for her to finish her conversation with the little communication device. She was young, _oh so young_, and what she was wearing… a low-cut shirt, exposing her neck, _her neck! her neck!_, and blood, _fresh, good, young blood; ever so delicious… no bitter tastes…_, blood pulsing calmly beneath it.

"…sir? Can I help you, sir?" The blonde was pulled out of his brain by her voice. Cold and tinkling, like glass wind-chimes.

"Um… yes… " He started, and then paused for a moment… what to ask? "Can you tell me who and where the owner of this tower is, ma'am?"

"Mt. Kaiba. He's in his office, sir. Are you a business associate?"

"Um… Well, I represent one, yes…" _Blood, so much blood… blood… _ He was salivating at the thought.

"Which business, sir?"

"Excuse me?"

"Which business do you represent, sir, so I can announce you?"

"Uhm… it's a science company, you know… we're interested in a collaboration with Mr. Kaiba."

"Yes sir, just hold on one moment," She went to press a button on her headset, pausing a moment before asking, "What company do you represent, sir, and do you have an appointment?"

Crud… ah, well, he had come this far, why quit now.

"Um… Paladin Labs. We- we didn't think to make an appointment… sorry…" He gave his best sheepish grin, trying not to reveal the two sharp points of teeth he now had.

"Just as well, sir," She pressed a button on her headset, muttering about stupid business associates an no appointments and just waltzing in like they owned the places! Before she could get much farther, a crackle of static and a sharp bout of microphone feedback spiked out of the headset, making the lady jump.

_"What!"_

"There's a representative from a Paladin Labs to see you, sir. Should I send him up?"

_"Did… did he make an appointment?"_

"No, sir, he said they didn't think to."

_"Fffhhhh…. Fine. Very well. Send him up."_

"Yessir."

She pointed to the elevator to the right. "You can go on up, sir. He'll be in his office on the 15th floor."

_So red, so warm and succulent…_ "Thank you."

Jou quickly made his way to the elevator, gripping the burn spot on his arm. There was a sharp fragment of pain, bringing him back to earth. Maybe the would would start to fester… He certainly hoped not.

Pressing the button for the 15th floor, he sat back and waited, hummed along with the elevator music. There was something odd about what the lady had said… A K… something starting with a K… Kiba….? No… Kinji? That wasn't it either… He rubbed his forehead, cursing the blood-lust fog. Kai…? Almost… Kai, Kai something… Kai-

The elevator dinged right then, and he stepped out into a floor that was the biggest office he had ever seen.

And behind the desk, nails digging into wood, teeth grinding, reeking of anger and sort temperedness, and looking, for all the world, like the scariest man alive, was Seto Kaiba.

Kaiba. He had known it started with "Kai."

**[KaibaCorp Tower- Earlier that morning]**

The day had not started off well. He hardly got any sleep (It was odd, and very difficult, conforming to human hours. Sleep all night, up all day…), he went through hell looking for that little vial of medicine, or potion, or whatever the hell it really was, and, beyond all that, he was thirsty. God, was he thirsty. He _needed_ blood. It was starting to get so bad to where he could feel every muscle, every particle of his being want for it and thirst for it and lust after it as he passed people in the streets. His mouth ran dry and parched, and at the same time he nearly salivated every time the world presented him with company in the human form.

When he had arrived at his office, he stomped quickly to the elevator, up to his office, and then proceeded to try and find something… _something_, that would allow him to get through the day. He couldn't snap n the middle of the afternoon and drink and employee dry… he had to wait until tonight. So he stayed locked up in his office, determined to stay alone. Then the secretary paged him.

_"There's a representative from Paladin Labs to see you, sir. Should I send him up?"_

"Did… did he make an appointment?"

_"No, sir, he said they didn't think to."_

"Fffhhhh… Fine. Very well. Send him up."

_"Yessir."_

Needless to say, the last person he expected to see was the blond transfer student from ho class. When he stepped out of the elevator, looking at him with slightly glazed over eyes and his head tilted to the side… Kaiba dug his nails into the wood of his desk to strengthen his resolve. _Not here. Not now._

"Jonouchi?" He glared at him, trying to steady himself. The blonde was a member of the Paladin Organization? "You're a member of Paladin?"

He watched with more interest than he intended as the blonde started, his semi-long hair brush just over to the top of his jugular vein… And then a nervous laugh rent the air.

"N-not really… I kinda made that up to get in here. I can't believe the lady downstair bought it, huh? Real luck, y'know?" Jonouchi's mouth barely moved. He was hiding something… in his mouth…

"I didn't even know it was real…" Jonouchi continued, looking around the large office space, twisting his head this way and that to take in everything, craning his neck to see some things and twisting it for others… Kaiba watched with increasingly unrepressed interest as tendons and veins were outlined, defined, and then melted back down together.

"Get. out," He hissed.

"Wh- um, okay…"

"_**Now.**_"

His head spun a bit with delirium. _There's the blood! Pulsing and warm and fresh… so fresh, so fresh! Fresh blood! Real blood! Needed blood… needed. Needed blood. Go after it, go after the sweet, fresh nourishing blood!_

By the time Kaiba had banished the bit of vertigo, Jonouchi had already backed out of the office.

He sat down and buried his face in his hands. It was going to be a long, excruciating day. Dammit.

**[Domino City Streets]**

Jou walked back outside, trying to think of what had just gone on. Not the he didn't get it or is it or process it or anything, but… just what was his purpose in going there. He felt a slight twinge in his chest when he thought of Kaiba up in that tower. He looked freaking' certifiable, to.

He looked up as he made his way from the tower, noticing that… he was lost. Great.

Looking around, he decided to take a turn down an alley that _looked_ to be in the right direction. Down the rabbit hole, then. He walked throughout the veritable maze, his brain still tied up with his thoughts. Kaiba and lost and the blood and here and where am I? He heard a distend laugh, smelled acrid cigarette smoke down that way. It stung his nose and burned his eyes. At least it meant there was someone down there. He followed the sound and the smell, coughing more and more as he got closer.

He finally got to the source. Three people, sitting around, smoking, drinking, laughing, not much older than him. He walked up to them, meaning to say 'Hello' or 'Sorry to bother you,' but one of the three turned his attention to him before he would.

"Wat'cha want, kid? Watcha' doing down here?"

"I got lost, and-"

"Y'hear that, boys. Said he's lost." They all laughed.

"I was wondering if you could give me some directions."

They stared at him a moment, the apparent leader taking a long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke back into his face. He coughed and waved it away.

"You'se look like you're family has some money…"

"That wasn't what I was asking-"

"Boys, I think we have ourselves a way to some money." He smiled and checked back over his shoulder.

They all hooted and laughed in unison at this.

Jou looked down as he felt a slight pressure at his stomach- a knife.

"Look, all I want is directions-"

"I'll give ya' directions. Just come wit' us."

"Directions out of here-"

"You do what just said and I'll get ya out of here."

Jou's head started to spin. He stumbles a bit, dizzy.

"Watsa matter, ya' scared?"

His stomach felt empty…

"Hey, C'mon kid. You're coming with us."

The thug grabbed him by the arm, hauling him up and sticking the knife back in front of his stomach.

"Lemme go…" He spoke quietly, almost without conviction. He didn't hear what they were saying anymore, his brain was too fogged. _Blood here… not so fresh. But blood. Take it! Seize it! Carpe Diem! You are thirsty, drink!_

He looked over, breathing heavily. He could see the thug, laughing at him, still puffing away on his cigarette… The smoke looked red… It was red. It was all red. He licked his lips, pulling them back into a smile.

There wasn't much of anything then. He heard the body fall to the ground with a thud (The cigarette was over there, now, still clouding his vision), he felt the blood well up and burst into his mouth from the thug's throat. The body still writhes underneath it as it bled out. The other two… they were running away… _Catch them then!_

Grabbing the knife, he threw it. It struck one in the back. He was on the body in an instant. _The back… the back is no good… spine, brainstem, fluid… yuck! Ech! _ He flipped the man over, unconsciously driving the knife through his spinal cord, severing it. The throat was ripped open. Before him the soft flesh lay open, ready and willing to satiate him. He dug his teeth into it, draining every bit of blood he could. He quickly looked for the third one… gone, long gone now, and to much of a bother to follow.

He stood up, going back through the alleyways. He could find the place eventually. He had to, or his _ _ _ _ _ _ would kill him. His body shuddered at the thought. That was incentive enough.

**[-_-_-_-]**

The space was dark, and it was damp. It wasn't the kind of place you would think to find a king or queen. The scientist approached a tall, throne-like looking stone seat, in whack a figure sat, resting it's head against it's hand. A weak diner-style light lit the figure from above, throwing the features into darkness.

He bowed his head as he approached. The figure didn't move. It was only when he was just outside the circle the light cast that the figure spoke.

"News? How is our newest experiment coming?"

"Very well, so far."

"Is he what we expected?"

"That and more! The new chip, the bi-cabon sulfate chip, it's doing wonderful! He's just what we want him to be! Except…"

The figure moved a bit, tilting it's head menacingly towards him.

"Except?" The word was chilling.

"Well… it seems we have some memory regression; Sadi tells me that whenever she goes to install an update or check on things, there's always a… file, I guess is how it could be described, that's locked. A part of his brain separate from what it's mean to be, that's inaccessible. Even to him."

"Can it be eliminated?"

"We don't know; we're going to conduct more research to find out-"

"Good."

There was a silence.

"Are there any other anomalies?"

"Well…"

"Good God, man! Spit it out! If I didn't want to know I wouldn't ask! Get yourself a spine!"

"There's a presence… A person. We converted the neuro-kinetic signals into an image."

"And?"

"Seto Kaiba. The CEO-"

"Of KaibaCorp. Yes, I am aware. So… our little experiment is thinking of Kaiba, is he? That… interesting. Aren't they classmates?"

"Well, yes, but this amount of emotion behind it; the thoughts themselves…they're different than that."

The figure chuckled a bit. Overhead, the light flickered and the dark space shook a bit. A subway train was running overhead.

"It sounds like our little experiment has a crush. Seto… Seto Kaiba…"

"Our records show that he's been around longer than… well, most CEO's."

"I am well aware. He's one of them, one of the vampires…"

The scientist was silent as the figure thought. This was his leader. Silent, obscured. Such a discovery to be made! He served her without question.

"Monitor him," She sad, making him jump slightly. "Follow him, watch him. Get a man in there. I want to know how old he is, what he's done, where he's from, what his family is like, his business associates… Get me everything."

"That will be incredibly difficult. He's one of the premiere business leaders of the time. We can't just send a man in- we might as well be trying to spy on the D.O.D-"

The figure tensed.

"Bertrand, I don't care if he's G.O.D, you get me everything you possibly god damn can-" The figure froze. "If you can't send someone, find someone willing to work for us. Pay them off. Offer them three times their yearly salary."

"There's his two private scientists. I can get people to make an offer to them."

The figure shook with laughter, before quieting down and turning it's shadowed head to look at him.

"Rotwang and Franz? Bertrand, are you up to par here? Rotwang wont; take money for espionage, he's strictly a scientist. Franz has the strictest moral code I've ever seen, after the fall of the Reich… Erich."

"Wat?"

"Erich! The SS-Totenkopfverbände officer! We have him, correct?"

"Yes, but he's in cold storage-"

"Then get him out. We won't go for money, we'll go for something far more venerable. Franz… we'll get him to give us all the information."

"But didn't you just say-"

"For a world-class scientist you certainly are an idiot, Bertrand. We'll manipulate Franz through his emotions. He hasn't been able to forget Erich since Nuremburg. He doesn't know we have the body, we can do anything-"

"But won't he be suspicious?"

"Yes, that is to be expected," The figure paused "But… Give a man one amazing night, remind him what he has lost, then offer him the food and the drink. He'll most certainly take it. Franz may be one of the smartest men on earth, but he's as emotionally venerable as everyone else. We destroy him mentally and emotionally, make him work for us, and we get what we need. Now go get that corpse."

Bertrand bowed low before the figure.

"Yes, ma'am."

He backed into the shadows.

**[End Ch. 4]**

Whoo~~! Ch. 4 es el DONE! :3

More mysterious crap. And I told you there would be a mention of Erich. :D

A small explanation for the starting section of the chapter- Y'all remember the mad science kick, right? Well,The blood in the refrigerator is mixed with an enzyme (Not to far from the blue stuff Kaiba uses) that builds up a resistance to sunlight. So, while the part of Jou's arm was burnt when he woke up, the reason he didn't totally disintegrate was the enzyme. And the blood helps strengthen- your immune system! : )


	5. Reanimation and Manipulation

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

There'll be some Franz/Erich action in this chapter. :P

And then some more evolving puppyshipping. : 3 (Which is what know you all came for)

**Chapter Four- Reanimation and Manipulation**

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Bertrand quickly made his way to the cold storage rooms. As silly as it may have sounded to some people, that's literally what these rooms were- cold storage. Replacing the blood in someone's body with preservatives and then cryogenically preserving them. This couldn't be used for fakes, however- the corpses had to be fresh.

Usually, reanimation was for mass armies. Usually, the corpse was brain-dead. Easy to resurrect physically, but there might not have been a brain in that skull. This was slightly more difficult. Brains couldn't be preserved; the neuro-tissue was to delicate. But maybe it was something simple microchip could fix… By a happy mistake, Sadie had transferred the _Totenkopfverbände_'s memories to a hard drive some time ago. D-532, he thought it was… He would go dig it up after he got the body.

It wasn't to hard to find. Time period, last name… 1945, Alder, Erich. Supposedly executed during Nuremburg in an Allied gas chamber. There he was, looking as young as he had fifty-five years ago. But his complexion was sickly, pale.

"We'll have to take care of that, my friend…" Bertrand said as he opened the cryogenic chamber, loading the body, in it's plastic bag, onto a cart and off to the lab. He would flush the preservatives from his system and pub blood back into his veins. He then just had to insert a chip in the brain, after it thawed but before the blood got there, sync it with the information on the computer, and return his clothes (They kept the SS uniform). Tell him what to do, and he was off. After they tweaked a few things in the Kaibacorp database. Sadie was only to happy to volunteer. She should be off getting it done right now, in fact.

Whistling to himself, the scientist wheeled the cart into a lab, moved the body to an operating table, and cut open the plastic bag. From there he wheeled over a machine with two tubes in it; one with a needle on the end, to be inserted into an arm, and one to be connected to a recycling tank. They were both connected to a box with a turbine in it, which would dislodge any chunks of glucose or preservative. He quickly found a vein and inserted the needle. He connected the second tube to the tank, and switched on the machine. Soon enough, clear liquid started to ooze out and spin, before being spat out and stored. In the meantime, he looked for the hard drive, making a mental note to get a tank of blood also.

When he came back, the process was complete. He checked a small readout screen on the cart- cold enough for the tissue to be wonderfully preserved, but soft enough to still be worked with. Maybe he should put on some Beethoven, it always make him feel like the scientific artist he was. He disconnected the machine from the recycling tank and hooked up the one filled with blood. He set the turbine on reverse, and _presto!_ Sit back and watch the show. He would have to reactivate his brain soon, and jump-start the corpse's heart. He quickly hooked up the hard drive to the computer in the corner of the room, inserting a microchip in a slide-out tray in a small computer tower. A window opened up- file after file of memories, information, and data. He typed in the corpse's name in the search bar. One file popped up. He selected it, then right-clicked and selected 'burn to chip' on the scroll-down menu. Looking back to the operating table, he could see the blood was nearly half gone. It was time then. He took the chip from the tray and put it in a small dish on an operating cart. Putting on a surgical cap, mask, and gloves, he pulled the cart over to the table with him. Carefully, so as not to disturb the needle, he turned the corpse over, moving the machine and the take as needed. He marked an area on the neck, just below where the skull ended. A small horizontal line, just to the right of the spine. Aiming a surgical light towards the spot, he picked up a scalpel and gently, slowly, cut into the spot. The flesh split, blossoming outwards so readily. It was beautiful- a pale flower. That was about deep enough there; he picked up the microchip with a pair of tweezers and slowly, slowly, so as to not damage it, slid it into the muscle. He then sutured it up, going along the natural cleavage line in the skin. Nobody would notice those stitches. He smiled to himself. The microchip would have more than enough time to put out roots to the brain, re-activating it. He would just need to send a few pulses of electricity- nothing that could't be done with an electro-therapy machine, now, as it happened, before the roots extended into the brain, and then a defibrillator for his heart. The machine was right in the corner, ready to go. He hooked it up. Time to turn that dial all the way to eleven…

**[KaibaCorp Tower- Terminal Room]**

Sadie was very pleased with herself right now. Having snuck into the building, she was now in the main computer room. Hard drives, state-of-the-art computers, testing systems… probably the most technologically advanced room outside of NASA.

She sat down at one of the terminals, moving the mouse so the screen would light up. No need for a password- who could possibly get in here, after all? She searched 'floor plans'- had to know where to send their reanimated little officer, after all. The first file was a decoy. Pah. There was an encrypted one, though, with the mundane label- "Finances." Only the supposed 'trusted few', she guessed.

The code was tricky, she had to give Kaiba that. Only a paranoid nut like him would have a partial eternity code! Not even the best computer geeks could hack this, or even conceive of it. It took hours, but she finally did it, and left herself a quick back door.

Inside were building plans. All she expected- the large number of floors, the basements, and then a little level below the basement- down in the foundations. A lab. A whole complex. She smiled wickedly. _This_ is where he would go.

She printed off a copy, and then spotted another file at the bottom- 'access and security.' _Click_.

Visitors needed a code and a key card. For permanent residents, there was the whole nine yards. Amazing. There had to be a way to print it off and program the pad from here… Ah-_ha._"Program Application." She typed in a nine digit number. At the bottom right-hand corner, there was a button. "Print Card." One click away. The machine hummed to life afterwards, printing our a credit card-sized piece of yardstick with a magnetized strip running along one of the longer sides. Writing down the number in sharpie on the other side, she closed out of the application and snuck back out. All during the lunch break. She was _too_ good.

**[The Day After- Domino High School]**

Jonouchi yawned at his desk, slipping down into his seat. He had avoided all contact with Kaiba after what had happened yesterday. Kaiba seemed less agitated than yesterday, though. More controlled. What had happened to him? Maybe being a CEO really did drive some people insane… He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the teacher calling his name.

"Mr Jonouchi!"

"Yes Ma'am!" He snapped to attention, earning a few indiscreet snickers.

"Do you mind joining us all in the world of the living? Maybe answer this question?"

"Yes, ma'am, I apologize… what was the question?"

"What was the highest level of knight in Charlamagne's court?"

"Uhm…" He scrambled for an explanation, finally settling on "A Paladin?"

That was probably the worst guessing attempt in the history of guessing attempts-

"Correct. Good job, Mr Jonouchi. I'm glad to see you're up to speed, despite being in a dream world most of the time."

He muttered a 'sorry' before sliding back down in his seat. He decided to shoot a furtive look out at Kaiba, who was reading, as per usual, and not paying a bit of attention. He was such a know-it-all… Now, if only he made friends with him, maybe he could copy his homework…

There was a shrill bell sound, making him jump in his seat. Lunch. Oh god, lunch. Thank god. His stomach felt like ti was practically _eating_ itself! _There's blood! So much of it, all for the taking! Maybe a walk, taking a meal with you…_ He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn't notice Batchi, going to tackle him from behind.

"You lug! What's up with you today," She asked, wrapping her arms around his neck, rocking back on her heals.

He turned his head to look at her. Her red hair cascaded down her shoulders towards him. _Looks like blood_.

"Nothing… just tired, is all…"

"Couldn't sleep? Maybe Jou-chan had a _lady friend_ over last night?" She laughed.

"No, that's wasn't it,"Jou half-scowled. Same old Batchi. Brazen to a fault.

"Was it the news, then? Man, that stuff was gruesome. I hardly slept because of it!"

That woke his brain up.

"News?" He was frozen, his mind working furiously.

"Yeah. About the two gangsters that were found. Some guy managed to get some pictures to the news station, even! Their throats- ugh!" Batchi shivered behind him. "To gory."

"From miss 'I love horror flicks'? That's a good one," Bakura said from behind her.

Jou glanced over to Kaiba again, who, he noticed, was watching all of them from the corner of his eye. His eyes connected with the others fora moment, before quickly swiveling back.

Batchi noticed, looking back and forth between Jou and Kaiba before standing up.

"Hey, Kaiba," She leaned down until she was eye level with him, pulling down his book.

"Yes?"

"Put the book down for a moment, walk with me."

"And if I don't?"

"I drag your ass out of this seat. You know I can, and I will."

With an annoyed sigh, Kaiba closed his book. Setting it down on the desk, he stood up and followed the girl out. Batchi shut the door behind her and went to lean up against the windows on the opposite wall.

"What's wrong with Jonouchi," She asked. Well, she certainly was efficient.

"I have no idea."

"No, you do have an idea, but you won't tell anyone," She stepped closer, getting up in his face. "What secrets are you hiding from everyone? There's something there; it's affecting Jou. Either tell me or eliminate it, or I'll do my best to find out what it is."

Seto paused for a moment, working out all the information.

"What I know or don't know is none of your business. I am hiding nothing. But what about you," He narrowed his eyes. "What are you hiding? What do people not know about you, Batchi?"

The girl smirked below him.

"There's a lot you people don't know about me, Seto Kaiba."

She walked around him to get back into the classroom, but paused and turned at the door.

"I _will_ find out what you're hiding. You can be sure of that." And with that, she disappeared back into the classroom, back with her friends.

Seto ran a hand through his hair. Long day… another long day. He had gotten blood yesterday, he was satiated enough to get through today. He hoped.

**[-_-_-_-]**

Green eyes blinked open. A harsh light was shining down from somewhere above… a hand moved to block it. Ears heard a noise. Dim at first, but steadily growing louder. A head turned to the left. A hunched figure in a lab coat… a white lab coat. The hand blocking the light fell back to the surface beneath the body; a sharp metallic sound reverberating around the room. The figure in the lab coast turned around. A smile broke out on it's face. It came closer, holding something folded in it's hands… An outfit of some sort, with a hat.

"I see you are awake, _Offizier_," It said, setting the outfit down and helping the body sit up. Stiffly, at first. The arms and legs were hard to move.

"Ah, that is to be expected. Well, not to worry! As soon as we get you up and about, you'll be fine in no time! Here," The man (For now the eyes could see that it was definitely a man, and the ears could hear) helped him off the surface and onto a pair of feet. The uniform was handed over. "Go and get yourself dressed. I'll be back n a moment with food." And with that, the man was gone.

It was difficult, sliding on the pants. A belt, the shirt, the jacket (With many metals and adornments), another belt (This time across the chest), and a pair of black, shiny boots. Lastly came a hat. Black, like the rest of the clothes, with white trim along the top and brim. There was a silver skull, and an eagle carrying an insignia in it's claws with a _Hakenkreuz _at the center. The hands brought it up from the eyes, fitting it over the top of the head.

Waiting for a moment… the brain tried to figure out where the body was. There were bright lights overhead, with a metal surgical table below. An operating theater? Maybe so. But the eyes couldn't see an seats for students…

The door opened just then, sending a sword stroke of light across the floor. The head moved so the eyes could get a better look. The man was back, this time with a tray of food. The smell was incredible. On the tray there was some vegetable soup, bread, and cheese- not much, but substantial. A glass of water, too. The hands went after that first- reaching for it so the mouth could open and gulp it down.

_The water was gulped down thankfully, greedily. It ran in rivulets down from the mouth._

"Not too much, not so quickly," The man said after half the water was gone.

_"Don't drink so much at one time, you'll make yourself ill."_

The hands lowered it back down to the tray, and from there proceeded to attack the rest of the meal, eating with gusto. The flavors were amazing on the tongue. The mouth watered.

"_Offizier_," The man started, getting the brain's attention. "My friends and I have a proposition for you- a collaboration, of sorts. With you. You are not in any position to refuse, so I suggest you don't."

The head nodded. The brain understood.

The man relayed instructions. To KaibaCorp Tower with a woman, Sadie. When the clerk was distracted, go to the elevator. the one on the _right side_. That was imperative. From there, down. Press the "lobby" button twice. When the elevator stops, go down the hallway. There will be a door. To the right, a keypad. Slide the card, punch in the code (The man held out a car. The hand took it, placing it in a breast pocket), swipe the card, and walk on through. Find a man called "Franz."

_Pale blond hair, falling nicely about the face; creme colored skin, pale lips, and bright, bright blue eyes. A far cry from the emerald green that the eyes possessed. The blue was framed by a pair of glasses. A corona of light shone from behind the head, creating a halo, almost. The perfect picture of the perfect Aryan, and- by extension- the perfect German. _

From there, talk to this man. Know him as you did.

_Love him again._

The head nodded, the lips smiling slightly.

Officer Erich C. Alder of the SS-Totenkopfverbände was alive once again.

**[KaibaCorp Tower- Lobby]**

Erich and Sadie walked into the lobby. Enough distance between them to make them look like strangers. On the way there, people had stared, seeing the _Hakenkreuz_, the swastika, on his arm and the cap on his head. They all whispered. He didn't much care, pressing on through the sea of speculating words. Sadie proceeded to walk up to the front dest and distract the clerk while he pretended to wander around, discreetly pressing the button on the _right_ elevator as he did so. In a moment, it was there. Empty. He stepped inside, pressing the Level 1 button twice as the doors man was right, the elevator went down. The doors opened up into a hallway. Steel double-doors were at the end. He walked along the hallway towards them, purpose in every stride. Pulling the card out of his pocket, he slid it through the reader on the keypad, typing in the nine digit code. The doors hissed open, allowing him to enter. At the end of a very advanced-looking lab, there was a table. Hunched over the table, working on a chemical experiment, was who Erich knew to be Franz. He walked inside.

Franz was working. Working very hard, mind you, to find a balance in the medicine between the chemical SPF inducer and the energy and protein enzymes. He was alone; Rotwang was off somewhere in the huge underground labyrinth. He was almost done balancing a certain anti-oxidizing live culture when the door hissed open and footsteps echoed inside.

"Ah, Mr. Kaiba! I wasn't expecting you down here for another two hours or so; did you decide to take the day off," He asked, turning around and holding beaker filled with blue liquid to show off, "I've just finished balancing a lice culture for a new formula that I think will help with the-"

He froze in mid sentence, looking at the person before him. Taking off his hat and tucking it under his arm, smiling, like in all the pictures of soldiers come home, and every bit as alive and tangible as before- standing before him was Erich.

Franz nearly dropped the beaker. His heart probably very nearly stopped as well. He hurriedly put it down on the table, sloshing some of the contents over the edge. He couldn't believe it. It just was not possible. There was Erich. All six or so feet of him, blonde hair and pale skin and green eyes, smiling and in his uniform. Just like in 1945. Just before Nuremburg.

"_Mein Gott_… Erich…!"

"_Hallo_, Franz. Did you miss me?"

His voice. That was his voice. That smile. The scientist tried taking a step forward, and instead almost stumbled.

"This isn't possible," He said, his voice trembling. "You… you're dead! You were executed, by the allies! I was there! I was-"

He stumbled over his words a moment, not wanting to say anything more.

Erich walked towards him, stopping just in front of him, setting his hat down on the table, placing his hands on Franz's shoulders.

"I'm here now, aren't I? And you! You're still here as well, just the same as all those years ago!"

The scientist was at a loss. He reached a hand out, making sure he could touch the body. Making sure it was _real_… The shoulders, the neck, the face and hair… Real, all real.

"You were dead. I swear to god, you were dead… I remember," He moved his hand down to Erich's neck, "I checked your pulse. I said it! I said you were dead!"

Hurriedly, he pressed two fingers against a vein and waited. It was there, under his finger. The vein, pulsing gently.

"Oh my god…"

He felt Erich pull him closer, into a hug, running his hand up and down Franz's back as the scientist stood there, trembling in shock, hands resting on his shoulders. He heard it, to. The heartbeat. There was a heartbeat!

"Are you okay," The former officer asked, pulling back a bit to look him in the eye.

"Christ, I'm not okay! You were- you were dead! Fifty-five years ago, you are dead, and now… now you're here, you're alive! How! It's not… it's not possible! I would've known-"

He stopped there, breathing heavily. He felt tears leaking out from his eyes. He angrily went to wipe them away. He never cried.

"Franz."

"_Ja_?"

"I can't… stay here forever. I'm here because I need something. Something very valuable, very important. Can you help me get it?"

Franz clutched the front of the black uniform, feeling the medals below his hands.

"Will you… can you stay if you get it?"

"…Yes. Yes, I can stay if I do."

Franz thought it over.

"…What is… What is it that you need?"

**[Outside Domino High School]**

The final bell had rung. Students poured out of the school like sap from a maple tree- the building was practically oozing with people, just waiting to throw them out.

Seto walked behind Jonouchi and his band of friends. Watching the blond as he laughed and joked around, heading for the gates. He trailed a good bit behind them, choosing to lean on the fence and observe them from behind a book. Slowly, one by one, they all dispersed. Ryou and Bakura, then Anzu, then Tristan and Yuugi. Jonouchi was left leaning on the wall with Kaiba.

He looked over, noticing Kaiba and his book. Sliding over, he bent down to read the title.

"Man, You're reading "The Jungle" _again?_ Do you ever get tired of reading?"

"No."

Jou looked at him with a put-out expression on his face.

"So… what're doing today?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because." He shrugged, looking up at the sky.

"There is no 'because,' you either have a reason or you don't."

There was a pause.

"I guess… I just wanna get ot know you better, y'know? I mean, you're my classmate, I sit next to you. I want to get to know you." He smiled to himself.

Kaiba was silent next to him. Not reading, but looking at him.

"What do you do?"

"I run a company. You decided to drop in, didn't you?"

Jou grimaced, remembering seeing a, infuriated-looking Kaiba.

"Okay, so I'm sorry about that. but it was… interesting. What made you act that way?"

"Why do you care?"

"Getting to know you, remember? So tell me."

"Work. It's very frustrating."

"… could I come visit some time? Like a 'bring your kit to work day'," Jou ventured.

"It would be exceedingly disturbing if yo were my child. If you want to come to my workplace, get a job there."

"Will you give me a job?"

"Put in an application, like everyone else if you want." He flipped out a phone, checking the time. 4:00.

"You need to go," Jou asked, watching curiously. "Busy ruling the world, huh?"

"Nothing so grand," Kaiba said, closing the book and walking off. A car was waiting on the curb. He climbed in, and it drove off.

Jou leaned on the fence longer, looking up at the sky and waiting for something. He He didn't know what, but he felt it. Anxiety. He wanted something to happen, waited for something to come. For another hour or so, at least. The sun was dipping below the horizon, the trees and buildings seeming to reach for it, dragging it down below into a tight hug. He got up off the fence and walked away.

Something big was coming. It was happening. He just didn't know what it was.

**[End ch. 5]**

Ok… so, the espionage angle has been set up, so has imminent doom for guess who? :P

Very little Seto/Jou exposure here, and I apologize for that. ):

I've also been watching House recently, and it gave me ideas for where I want this story to go. :3

Also, if anyone wants to see the uniform Erich was wearing, here's what it looks like:

http:/ ./_5rHHg1chFGo/ SFkpwerR-dI/AAAAAAAAA9M/ Guck-6fPiUs/s320/SS+UNIFORM. jpg

Copy, paste, eliminate all the spaces. :)


	6. Das Ubermench

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

Back again, back again, and just as quickly (I'm a guerilla writer!).

So, I'm gonna go for it here- the strict character development angle. Hope it's everything you guys want!

**Chapter Six- Das Ubermench**

Kaiba sat in the back seat of the car, staring out the window and thinking. He was starting to feel a little anxious around Jou; somewhat exited. And at the same time… he felt something wasn't quite right, wasn't quite…_there. _There was something off about him, but Kaiba just couldn't place his finger on it.

The car turned. A tower shot up in front of them from the distance, a Titan's hand reaching for the heavens above to drag itself out of it's prison. The Titans arm, and at the top, the Titan's hand. The Brain-pan of KaibaCorp, and where he would spend most of his time in life. When he wasn't with his little brother, at school, or killing fakes and investigating gruesome crime scenes. He probably needed a few new hobbies, other than obsessively playing Duel Monsters and hunting down and killing copies of other worldly, supposedly non-existent beings and cooperating with covert organizations older than Jesus.

What fun.

The car pulled into the parking garage behind the building; it was dull compared to the shiny tower of reflective glass and industrial steel. A poured-concrete building that looked like it could have been hauled from a city in the middle of siberia. It was just like parking garages everywhere- functional above all.

Kaiba stepped out of the car, trench coat swishing around his ankles and holding a heavy-looking aluminum briefcase in his hand. He walked purposefully towards the exit, to the back door of the building, and looked to his right. Rainclouds gathered over the setting sun, casting an ominous shadow over the city. Wind swept through the streets and alleys, chilly blades slicing through cold static. Winter was drawing to a close, and the seasonal beast that it was seemed angry. It would hibernate for summer, sleeping out the heat and sometimes sticky humidity in it's cold, reclusive cave, before emerging once more and consuming half of the world; drawing it into it's cold, frosty belly.

The doors at the back of the tower led into a smaller space, a secondary lobby. The elevator to the subterranean lab complex and his office was on the left here, and the general elevator to the right (To the entire staff, though, they were both standard, run-of-the-mill elevators).

Into the elevator on the left and up to his office to check the news and attend to company business, which had not been done lately due to hunting and his blood-induced rage.

His office looked normal from the elevator; the cleaning crew had tidied up while he was at school. His secretary and put the papers in order, the computer monitor was off, and books were re-shelved perfectly. The coffee maker had a new pot, and the vase he had ended up smashing was replaced.

Walking up to the oak-paneled desk, he could see the faint scratch marks he made when he dug his nails into the desk. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Why, in the name of all that's holy (His throat seemed to lurch at the thought), did he even bother to come to his office that day? He could have done all the work just as easily from home, and he probably wouldn't have torn his home apart.

A shrill beep interrupted his thoughts, coming from the phone. He picked up the receiver, pressing a blue button.

"Yes?"

_"There's a Katsuya Jonouchi here at the desk sir,"_

He was back... Dammit, why would he even bother? Kaiba frowned at his realization- He was serious about the job. Good Lord.

"What does he want?"

_"A job interview, sir."_

"Tell him to fill out an application first."

_"He's doing so right now, sir. He insisted that I page you for a job interview immediately, though."_

"Tell him the application has to be processed first."

How did he even get down here so quickly?"

_"I did, sir, but he still requested-"_

"Then send him back home when he's done. Tell him to leave his phone number and we'll call him when the application is processed for an interview."

_"Yessir."_

He set the handset down, pulling over a manilla file and taking out papers to read through and sign.

A request for the green-light on a nanites project for the local hospital- explorative technology to save money on surgeries.

"S. Kaiba" Was scribbled along the bottom.

More funding for the development of a new Duel Disk and software. He checked the current budget and what was used- they were far over the limit, but the development was going along well.

Another scribbled signature.

Why had Jonouchi even applied? He had said that if he wanted to 'get to know him better' (And the implications of that stretched even deeper beyond what Kaiba cared to think about right now), and Kaiba had told him to apply for a job, yes... But he didn't think that the blond would actually take the suggestion _seriously_.

Something about telecommunications... the military...

A hastily scribbles signature.

The phrase "Get to know you better" kept rattling around in his head, Jonouchi's voice reverberating against his skull. Everyone else seemed to not care; Batchi would talk to him occasionally, backing off when he was unresponsive, and pretty much everyone else seemed to just avoid him. And these were people he had spent his whole (recent) high school career with. Jonouchi had hardly been at the school a month or so (Another scribble), and he was trying to "Get to know him better"... something about it didn't seem right. It wasn't deeper, hidden implications that you would only spot if you wanted to; it was the readiness, the openness of it... It seemed _to_ open. Mokuba would tell him he was just over thinking.

He didn't even bother going over the rest of the papers, putting the signed ones back in the folder and slamming it shut a little more viciously than he probably should have.

Sitting there and lost in complicated, yarn-like tangles of thinking, he didn't notice when the paging button on the phone beeped, or when the elevator doors opened and out stepped Jonouchi, for the second time that week.

He didn't notice until the blond walked right up to his desk and pulled over a chair, sitting down with a determined look on his face and putting the filled out application on the desk in front of him.

"Are you going to hire me or not?"

**[Earlier; Domino City Public Bus System]**

Jonouchi fished out a menial bit of yen from the lint-laden bottom of his pocket, putting it in the change box at the front of the bus. He quickly made his way to a seat near the back, holding his schoolbag in his lap and looking out the window. There were dark clouds gathering out above the city. The feeling of anxiety curled tighter and twisted in the pit of his stomach, making him want to throw up.

A few more people filled up the seats, chattering and listening to MP3's and reading... He felt that small, glutinous part of his brain kick in again. There was _blood, yes, lots of it..._

But not now! Not now! He shook the thoughts out of his head. Now he needed to focus on Kaiba. At least Kaiba. But not the voice. No, blood could wait. He signed, leaning his head against the window. He couldn't think of anything to do during the bus ride across the city, so he searched his brain...

_There it was, the bus stop. Brownstones were all around them, stretching up three, four, five stories. Kids played soccer and hop-scotch and soldier and house and tag and pirates on the street, laughing and shouting their delight at winning and displeasure at losing. Joey wanted to join them... really, really wanted to. Especially pirates. Pirates was fun to play. He was just about ot tell his mom when the bus came, and he was, sadly, pulled on board._

He blinked a few times. Where had that come from?

He was where "Joey" was... thinking up that little scene, he felt oddly comfortable.

It felt right.

The thoughts were still filtering through his head when he looked out the window and saw KaibaCorp Tower just a block away. Pulling his stuff behind him, he ran out to the pavement and down to the building.

Up the steps, and into the lobby.

There was the secretary, same as the last time he was here. He walked up to the desk.

"Um... Hi-"

"No, sir, Mr. Kaiba is not willing to speak with any 'associates' today." The secretary said, not even bothering to look up from some Memo's.

"No, that's okay, I just want a job and an interview."

The lady gave him an almost disbelieving look, before turning around in he swivel chair and opening a file cabinet. She put the form down on the counter and handed him a pen.

"Fill this out, and we'll process it and phone you for an interview in a week or so."

Jonouchi wrote his name, age, and birthday (He thought it was) Into the individual spaces.

"Look, can you talk to Mr. Kaiba and tell him I want an interview?"

"The application must be processed first, sir-"

"Look, I'm sure if you just talk ot him-"

"Okay, Okay. Very well, _sir_. I will ask Mr. Kaiba for an immediate interview," She said, picking up the handset.

Jonouchi smiled to himself and finished filling out the application, barely hearing the secretary talk to Kaiba over the system.

"Mr. Kaiba said to send you back home. Leave your phone number and we'll call you when we process your application. Have a nice day, sir."

She turned back to her work as jou finished the form.

He sat there a moment, looking at the elevator. Just six feet or so... why not?

He grabbed the paper and edged over towards it. The secretary didn't even notice. He pushed the "Up" button. The doors slid open with a faint 'ding' when the box got there. He looked over to see if the secretary noticed. Still good.

Into the elevator, press the button, and up he went. He looked around the elevator, whistling over the faint music.

He wondered why nobody ever seemed to be here when he was. Before he could finish musing, the doors slid open.

Kaiba sat at his desk, the complete opposite of the least time that Jonouchi saw him. Calm, almost lost in thought, pensive. He walked up to the desk, pulling over a chair for guests. Putting the application on the desk before him, he tried his best to put on a determined face and said;

"Are you going to hire me or not?"

Kaiba seemed to jolt a bit, blinking before really noticing him. Man, he must have been really out of it.

"Jonouchi, what are you doing here?"

"Hire me. Give me a job. Pay me to work for you. I've got an application, here's the interview."

Kaiba sighed, giving him an unamused look, like he was an aggravating child.

"We have to _process_ the application first, Jonouchi. Put the information in the computer system, set a date, and call you for an interview. Until then, go home, rest, and think about what you're going to say if you get an interview."

"Whad'you mean-"

"Go home."

"But-"

"Home."

"Kaiba-"

"_Home. Now, Jonouchi. This will be processed, we will call you, you will be interviewed. __**Now go home**_."

Jonouchi sat there for a moment before getting up.

"...Fine, fine. Okay. See you later."

He waved a bit and walked back to the elevator, ignoring the shouts of the secretary when she saw him walk out of the elevator.

Out the front door and back into the sunlight, back home.

**[-_-_-_-]**

When Jonouchi got back to his home (That's what _ _ _ _ _ _ told him to call it), he found his way to the kitchen, which was really the portal to the whole rest of the complex (House), and was immediately enveloped in a hug and a flurry of silk-black hair.

"My god, where were you? It's almost five! That's too late to come home from school, even for a club meeting, so don't feed me that bull!" Sadie hugged him, squeezing his shoulders and rib cage until he felt his spine would pop in two.

"I-I'm okay... I'm okay; I just- went to apply for a job, y'know," Jonouchi managed to squeeze this out, despite not really being able to breathe well. "Can you let go, you're hurting me..."

Sadie quickly released him, pushing him out to arms length with a sympathetic smile one her face.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting what you are."

Jonouchi's eyes widened a slight bit at this, his eyebrows furrowing.

"What I am? What am I, then?"

"Oh- oh, nothing you absolutely _need_ to know, it's just... you're important. You're instrumental, special. Because of that, you're... fragile, I guess."

"Oh... Okay."

Sadie frowned after that, though. A normal, concerned _ _ _ _ _ _ again.

"But a job? You got applied for a job?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Kaibacorp."

The look on her face would have been priceless otherwise, like she had stumbles in on a surprise party or something pleasant (Or not so much) that merited a slow reaction at first.

"You applied for a job at kaibacorp?"

"Yes... did I do something wrong?"

"...I don't know."

She let go of his shoulders and turned around, walking ot the door, and stopped when she was just outside of it.

"Jonouchi? Can you go to your room for a little bit, please?"

"Am I-"

"No. It's just... there's something I need to take care of. To talk about."

"You could always talk to me."

"It's not something I would discuss with you... It's a more private thing. You're not in trouble, Jonouchi. I just need you to be alone for a little while, okay?"

"...Okay, sure."

_Sure, _ _ _!_

Jonouchi watched as Sadie walked down the hallway, disappearing around the corner.

With a sigh, he walked to his room, looking at the white walls and wondering what _ _ _ _ _ _ was so uncomfortable about all of the sudden. He couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he had done something wrong.

**[-_-_-_-]**

"He applied for a job, Bertrand! A job! With Kaibacorp, nonetheless! _Kaiba_corp! Oh my god..."

Sadie had her face in her hands, sighing. Bertrand stood in front of her, pensive.

"We could use this to our advantage. Kaiba is a collaborator with the Paladin organization, a willing pawn for them. With Jonouchi at Kaibacorp, we could use him for so much, exercise his true potential far beyond what we have so far!"

"But I don't feel comfortable with him near Kaiba! Kaiba is a nothing but a killer, you know that! And he's smart. He'll find out that Jonouchi is one of the Fakes, and the new model we've created, he'll kill him and hand him over to that pink-haired brat and her so-called scientists to dissect! They'll cut him open, they'll reverse- engineer him, they'll-"

"Stop worrying, stop worrying," Bertrand put a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. "They won't find out. He is perfect. A human, as far as they're concerned."

"But with no heartbeat! The employees, they're required to have a physical done! The doctor will know! Even those resurrected shells you create have a heartbeat!"

She paused for a moment, taking deep breaths, calming herself.

"You have to put down _Phone Numbers_. We don't even have one of those!"

**[KaibaCorp Tower- 15th Floor]**

Kaiba sat at his desk, reading the application before he sent it back down to the secretary.

_Name (Last, First): Jonouchi, Katsuya_

_Age: 16_

_Applying for the Position of: Anything_

_-Personal Information-_

_Birthday(mm/dd/yy): __10/09/10_

_Address: 516 LionCourt Road_

_City: Domino, Japan_

_Zip Code: 30159_

_Phone Number: (803)D555009_

_Social Security Number: _

The blond really didn't know how to fill out a basic application. But that wasn't what really bothered him.

On the "Birthday" Line... 10-9-10. October tenth, two thousand and ten. That was just last year. It was January first now, barely two months after the date. Two months. _Two_. How could he be 16? Obviously, there was something off. Maybe something big.

He picked up the black industrial-looking phone on his desk. He had an idea of who he could call.

He dialed the number.

_"Sì! Chi è? Chi sono voi? Che cosa volete?"_

Kaiba sighed. He didn't have time for her short temper, or her Italian. Japanese would be quicker for him, and that was all he wanted.

"Romanorum. Look, I don't have time for this, I have something I need your help with."

_"Ah, Kaiba, twit! Che cosa mi volete fare, huh? Costruisca un razzo? Guida alzate il Yamamoto? Che cosa?"_

"Can you please quit the Italian for a moment? I just meed you to look up this one person."

_"No, spiacente e chi mi volete guardare su?"_

"His name is Jonouchi Katsuya."

_"Che cosa ha fatto?"_

"Applied for a job."

_"Oh. Quello è! Non ha rubato una certa sorgente senza fine di energia nucleare? Ha fatto domanda per appena un job, voi twit! Quello non è un crimine e quello non è degno del mio mio tempo prezioso, capisca?"_

"Then listen to this; He put his age down at 16 but his date of birth was only about two months ago. Does that merit any of your precious time now, twit?"

_"… giusto. L'approvazione, quella ha potuto valere la pena di guardare in. Inviimi le informazioni sopra una tassa di dati e vederò che cosa posso fare"_

"Okay. Thank you."

_"Grazie? Il grande Seto Kaiba, twit fra i twits, ha detto appena vi ringrazia? Che cosa è la conclusione del mondo?"_

"Ha-ha, very funny. Hurry up, get me the information, and I won't bother telling you where you can shove all your crap, _Capisca, voi twit?_"

And with that, he hung up the phone. Setting the application inside, he made a mental note to send it back down sometime later. He needed a security update, though. He had finished working on an Eternity Code encryption for the Terminal Room, around the files concerning information about the lab complex that, according to the blueprints in city hall, didn't exist. If there was anything below the Kaibacorp building, it could be dirt or some ancient native american burial ground for all the city cared. He logged into the information, checking access logs first.

Normal, normal, normal. All normal, except... There, just yesterday, during the lunch break. Nobody would be in the Terminal Room. And nobody would be accessing the blueprint files, either. He felt furious. Someone Hacked. Walked right into the terminal, and hacked it! Into secret blueprints protected by a partial eternity code! Te fact that they got past it meant that they not only new what it was, but had the same thing, or better. And there was a pass to the Lab Complex set up, key card and all. Someone had compromised the system. _His_ system. And might have put his company and employees in danger. That did not sit well with him. Whomever did this would regret it.

He stood up, closing out of the window and walked hurriedly to the elevator. Pressing the "Lobby" Button twice, he felt the contraption lower him. Down, down, down, until the doors dinged open. Out into the hallway. The fluorescents didn't seem as bright this time. The steel doors. hand, eye, voice. The lightning tubes powered down in an instant, and the pneumatic seals released. The steel doors slid open.

**[End Part 6]**

Cliffie for your viewing pleasure. ; )

Who dares to incur Kaiba's wrath? :P

Also note that "Das Ubermensch" means "The Superman," even though the title has nothing to do with the chapter itself, contrary to what I planned. :P

Here are the translations for the Italian parts (Please remember that these are rough, Direct translations, the grammar and such will probably be incredibly off)

_"Sì! Chi è? Chi sono voi? Che cosa volete?"="_Yes? Who is? Who you are? What you want"

_"Ah, Kaiba, twit! Che cosa mi volete fare, huh? Costruisca un razzo? Guida alzate il Yamamoto? Che cosa?"= _"Ah, Kaiba, you twit! What do you want me to do, huh? Construct a rocket? Help you raise the Yamamoto? What?"

_"No, spiacente e chi mi volete guardare su?"= _"No, and who you want me to look up?"

_"Che cosa ha fatto?"= _"What did he do?"

_"Oh. Quello è! Non ha rubato una certa sorgente senza fine di energia nucleare? Ha fatto domanda per appena un job, voi twit! Quello non è un crimine e quello non è degno del mio mio tempo prezioso, capisca?"= _"Oh. Is that all? He hasn't stolen an endless nuclear energy source? It's hardly suspicious to apply for a job, you twit! That is not a crime and that is not worthy of my precious time, understand!"

_"… giusto. L'approvazione, quella ha potuto valere la pena di guardare in. Inviimi le informazioni sopra una tassa di dati e vederò che cosa posso fare"= _ ...Okay. Fine, I'll look into it. Send the information over a data charge and I'll see what I can do."

_"Grazie? Il grande Seto Kaiba, twit fra i twits, ha detto appena vi ringrazia? Che cosa è la conclusione del mondo?"=_ "Thank you?" The great Seto Kaiba, Twit among Twits, has said Thank You to me? Is the world coming to an end!"


	7. Die Wahrheit

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

**So there.**

Back again~! :D

So... this time, More interesting stuff, I hope. : )

And if it's not, bear with me, I apologize.

"Die Werheit" means "The Truth," By the way. :D

**[Die Wahrheit]**

Kaiba walked into the lab. He expected to see... well, he didn't really know what. "Something really bad" seemed to be a gross understatement. He expected to see someone trashing the place. Or something like that. Instead there was... nothing. Just nothing. The lab, with the terminals up against one wall, the steel table at the end, with glass beakers, tubes, and benson burners. One turned up to the 'High' setting, a vial of oddly colored liquid boiling over, and a beaker of viscous blue fluid, some of it dried dripping down the sides, some of it sloshed over a few papers. He guessed that was part of the medicine. That was more or less Franz's pet project, and he would never spill a formula or leave a mess if he could help it. Obviously, something had happened. Something big.

"And you're looking for Franz, _ja_, Herr kaiba?"

Rotwang stood in the doorway, looking like he might chuckle at what happened, at the situation.

"Yes. Do you know where he is?"

The scientist shrugged.

"No. Wherever he went, whatever he's doing, I have no knowledge of it."

All this was hidden behind a betraying smile.

_He knew_.

"Tell me. I do _not_ have time for your games. The security has been compromised, and I don't know where one of my two top scientists is. I cannot afford to be distracted by your games. Either tell me, or I pull the plug."

Rotwang's face fell.

"You have no sense of humor, Herr Kaiba. I honestly do not know where he went. But I did see him walk through here with someone. They are somewhere here in the complex."

"What did the other person look like?"

"A German officer, in a Totenkapfverbände uniform."

His security had been compromised... by a Nazi? That hardly made sense. Unless it was a fake, and they hardly subscribed to things of the past. But he didn't know of any Neo-Nazi's in Japan, and ones who wore old uniforms at that (Although they were probably out there somewhere).

"An SS officer?"

"_Ja_."

Kaiba put a hand over his mouth. It couldn't be Erich, he was dead. But that seemed to be the only possibility.

"It was probably Herr Alder. That would have been the only person; the only Nazi," Rotwang spat out the word as though tasted bitter in his mouth "That Franz ever spoke of. The only person he was ever sentimental about."

"But he was killed. He was executed at Nuremberg. I did my best to keep Franz alive, and I did. It was regretful that Erich died, but it happened. He can't be alive now."

"And yet, here you are," Rotwang spread his hands, lifting his arms and smiling. "Here _I_ am, still alive long after we should be dead. You know as well as I; Everything is possible in this world! I created a _maschinemench, _an artificial being! The penultimate being, far beyond what has been seen today! And nature created you, since it seems so intent on defying itself, along with mankind. Is it really so impossible that a man we believed dead shows himself _now_, of all times?"

He was right. There were vampires, fakes, androids, AI's; it was _all_ possible.

"I don't have time to discuss this with you. I need to find Franz."

He walked past the scientist, down the hallway. Franz's room. He would check there first. He placed a hand to the door and one hand on the door knob, almost going to open it when he heard him- _them_- talking. It sounded like a one-sided argument. It didn't sound like Franz was winning.

While Kaiba did respect others privacy, he wasn't one who was polite. Especially not during what one might consider a security crisis.

He opened the door.

Franz was sitting on his bed, his shirt loose, with Erich standing over him. And this was indeed Erich.

"What are you doing here?"

The question was directed at Erich. Very cold, and very direct.

The two looked at him, Franz in surprise and embarrassment, Erich in what looked like cold amusement.

"Talking to him," Erich answered, green eyes narrowing. "Is that so wrong, Kaiba?"

"It is when you've bypassed the security system to a complex that a very exclusive number of people know about and an even more exclusive number have access to."

Franz stood up, buttoning his shirt, messily tying his tie.

"M-mr. Kaiba, please-"

"You need to get out."

"Listen, Mr. Kaiba, he's not-"

"I don't think I should. I haven't seen Franz in what...? Fifty years?"

"Leave. Or I will make you leave."

"Listen, Mr. Kaiba, Erich's not harming anything, he's just here to see me-"

"But why did he know you were here," Kaiba yelled, turning to him. "How did he know? You are officially dead! So is he! Nobody knows about this lab, this complex, or you! How could he have possibly gotten the information, especially if he's been dead!"

The scientist was silent.

"...I know it sounds... ridiculous. But please, just... just let him stay. He won't hurt anything! He won't do anything!"

"It sounds outrageous."

"Yes, but-"

"I won't touch anything," Erich put his hands up in a mock-convict fashion. "Except maybe him." One arm around Franz's waist.

"Doesn't mean you can stay."

Awkward silence pervaded then. Nobody would budge. Not now or for however long. Erich either dies or he stayed. If he died yet _again_, Franz wouldn't stay and he couldn't keep up the daytime facade. He would have to tear everything down and build it all back up again, and he couldn't afford to do that. Not in todays world, anyway. He needed Franz here. Which meant-

"Fine. Fine, okay. Erich is your responsibility," he pointed at Franz. "He touches nothing, he hacks nothing, and has access to nothing. Observer status only, _verstehen Sie_?"

"You're to kind, _Herr Kaiba_," Erich bowed.

"You don't get off scot-free," Kaiba pointed at him. "You tell us who sent you and how you got down here. This is a place that doesn't exist. And you've been officially dead for over half a century. There is no way you just stumbled down here. You either had a lot of luck or someone backing you up, and I'm guessing it's the second."

He turned around to leave.

"You can talk to me when you decide to tell me how you got down here."

And he left.

**[Rome, Italy]**

The Romanarium sat at her computer terminal. Three large computer monitors stretched out before her, interconnected by messy sets of wires and cords. Lightning tubes crackled behind them, and a messy landscape of wires and film conduits and fiber-optix clusters stretched out to a cobbled mainframe of cleverly pieced together computer towers, whirring through a homemade cooling system. Two speakers were situated between the screens, producing a constant stream of orchestra and soundtrack.

She typed in "Jonouchi Katsuya" on a virtual touch keyboard (Yet another screen stretched out before her).

Nothing.

She opened up the data charge Kaiba sent her. There was a picture, probably from the school's mainframe. That was perfect. She entered the picture in a search program. The whirring got louder as the towers scraped through the internet, searching down every last bit they could find. A notice finally appeared on the screen.

_Ricerca Completa_

The Romanarium smiled grimly, looking through the files before putting them on another data charge.

_This_... This was interesting.

She sent the data charge.

**[Domino High School]**

Jonouchi sat in class the next day, tired, looking out the third story window to the outside. He wanted to be out there so bad. School just wasn't for him, he decided.

But _ _ _ _ _ _ said that since he was so instrumental in their plans, he had to go to school. He had to exist. They planted records, she said. He was real. But he didn't feel like it right now.

He turned and looked at Kaiba, sitting and looking at the front desk, watching the teacher, not really noticing her. Not really paying attention.

They were talking about civil rights in America.

He wasn't really paying attention either.

Kaiba struck him in a different way then anyone else really did. He wanted to be close to him, kind of like a friend... but not really. Closer.

But he didn't feel like he had the courage to do much about it.

_It's an infatuation. It's nothing, you'll get over it!_

He started to get lost in his own thoughts again. Remembering things, he thought it was.

_"She's pretty, though."_

_"Well, maybe you can ask her to eat lunch with you."_

_A woman put a hand on his shoulder. He was just up to her elbow. _

_"What if she says no?"_

_"They're are other girls, kiddo."_

_A man sitting at the kitchen table, reading a paper. _

_"Yeah, but she's __her__."_

_He put the paper down, smiling at him._

_"Don't be afraid to ask her, then. Y'know, I asked a girl to eat lunch with me when I was your age."_

_"What did she do?"_

_"...Laughed at me and then said no way. But that's not the point! I asked your _ _ _ _ _ _ the same thing in High school, and you know what she said?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"And that's the point!"_

_"...wait until I get old?"_

_"No. Keep trying. She may be __her__, but there'll be other people. So ask her."_

Maybe he should just ask him, then. Not to eat lunch together or anything, they ate lunch in the classroom and sat next to each other, anyway. Maybe he should... talk to him.

He checked the clock. It was almost twelve. He could wait.

"Jonouchi, can you answer the question?"

"Excuse me...?"

The teacher sighed.

"How did the civil rights acts affect American society?"

"...Well, it changed it..."

"Obviously. Can you elaborate?"

"...Integration?"

"Yes. Keep going."

"People didn't feel... comfortable with it. They had the government telling them that they had to peacefully coexist with the people they didn't like."

"Yes! Now, what might have led to that?"

"... I'm not sure..."

"The practice of slavery and the American Civil War." Kaiba spoke beside him, still not really paying attention.

"Very good, Kaiba. Yes, the practice of slavery and theAmerican Civil war made conditions very hard for the African American population years after..."

Jonouchi zoned out again, focusing back on Kaiba. He leaned over a bit.

"Thanks," he said.

"Hm."

Well, that could have gone better.

The bell rang for lunch a bit later.

"So, did you get my application processed," Jonouchi asked, eating a sandwich.

"Not yet. And the phone number you wrote down seems to be faulty."

"Why?"

"Because the secretary dialed it and it turned out to be a bank. I need a _real_ phone number."

"Oh... okay."

He went back to eating for a little bit.

"You never seem to eat."

An annoyed look crossed Kaiba's face.

"That isn't really healthy for you, y'know?"

Kaiba pulled out a book.

"Here. Eat it."

He held out half of his sandwich.

Kaiba still ignored him, handing it back.

"I don't want your food."

"I don't care. Eat it anyway. You'll starve if you don't eat anything."

"I don't eat a lot anyway."

"Still don't care. Eat it or I'll make you."

The book snapped shut.

"Take your food and leave me alone. Whatever is making you do this, stop it."

And with that, Kaiba grabbed his school bag, got up and walked out of the classroom, leaving Jonouchi frowning.

He walked outside, pulling out a cellphone as it vibrated in his pocket, the ringer put on _silent_ for school. He looked at the caller I.D.

_Unidentified Number._

It was probably the Romanarium. He flipped the device open.

"Yes?"

_"Hey, capo!"_

"No Italian. Not today."

_"Understood. I got what you wanted, Kaiba."_

"It must be good if you haven't given me any Italian sarcasm yet."

_"Oh, it's good. You'll think I'm God after this, Kaiba."_

"Then what is it?"

"_He's dead."_

Kaiba stopped for a moment.

"Dead? How can he be dead? He walks, he talks, he's human. He's alive."

_"He seems human. He's not."_

"Well then what is he? He doesn't seem like a fake, e can't be a zombie, and nobody can pull off a full reanimate. Not even necromancers."

_"Then let me clarify- He's not Katsuya Jonouchi."_

"Who is he?"

_"His real name is Joey Wheeler. He's from the Brooklyn area."_

"Then how is he in Domino Japan?"

_"Just let me finish, you twit! He was declared missing, presumed dead not to long ago over there. A few weeks after that, they found his corpse. The coroner's report put him as dead for a few hours. Long enough for the fist stage of rigor mortis to set in. It also determined he was killed by a neurotoxin of unknown makeup and origin, since his central nervous system looked worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. We'll need to confirm it of course, you'll need to get his medical files."_

"So somebody snatched his body and brought it over here."

_"And you'll get the medical files?"_

"Yes. Sure."

_"Good man. After the funeral service and after they buried him, it was reported that somebody dug up his grave. There's still an arrest warrant for whomever did it."_

"...It's the Mausoleum."

_"We can't be sure."_

"Yes, we can!"

_"Kaiba, there's no conclusive evidence, you twit!"_

"It's logic, not just evidence! We know that the Mausoleum is somewhere here in Japan, in close proximity to Domino, and we know they've been working on something new."

_"But we don't know what 'something new' is, twit! He may or may not be what we're looking for!"_

"And how could anyone but them put this together? Necromancers can't do this! Nobody but them can!"

_"Then get close to him!"_

The voice that emanated out of the tiny speaker startled him.

"Get close to him?"

_"Yes! Get close to him, find out all you can! That is what will get us the information."_

"... Fine. Very well."

_"Good. You'll find a data charge with more info in your personal mainframe at Kaibacorp."_

"Thank you."

_"So, are you going to say it?"_

"Say what?"

_"That I'm God."_

Kaiba shut the phone and called up a company car. It was in front of the school in just a few minutes.

**Ende Ch. 7**

Chapter 6 finished. Some things are coming to light. : )

I've still got quite a few plans for this story. :3


	8. Ich wünsche Sie

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

Here comes chapter 8!

I also changes the title- which is just plain 'Fake' now. :P

After reading a review posted by **666TheWitch666**, I must admit- I AM SCARED.

It was a very positive review, so I do thank you and I hope that I do not let you, or any other lovely readers of mine, down! So I'm going to keep writing as I have in hopes that it will be satisfactory, at least. : )

Ich wünsche Sie means "I want You", by the way (Inspired by the Across the Universe Soundtrack)

**[Ich wünsche Sie]**

Jonouchi walked back to his home. Kaiba left during lunch, and he hadn't come back at all. Batchi said it was normal for him. It still made Jonouchi feel uncomfortable. He really didn't want Kaiba to go anywhere. He was just... always there. It was odd if he left.

He shook the thoughts from his head. If it was anyone else, he wouldn't be thinking like that.

But it was Kaiba. It wasn't just anyone else.

And he liked Kaiba.

So maybe he would do something about it.

Sometime.

He just didn't know when.

So, tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow, he would do something about that little nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that was always concerned with Kaiba.

He turned into an out of the way street. Walking, walking, walking. The building on either side seemed to stagger and jut up above him. Taller and taller, stumbling up instead of down. He thought of KaibaCorp Tower, the titan's arm itself.

He hoped he got a job there. Really, _really_ hoped.

Stopping at a set of steps that went down to a door imbedded in one of the walls of a building, he descended down into the clinging shadows. There was hardly any sunlight here. Just enough to make swampy, oily, clingy shadows.

There was a small microchip reader by the door. He pulled out a key card and placed it over the reader, opening the door when he heard it beep in approval and satisfaction.

Walking in, he came to a well-lit, sparse but walls and glossy floors.

He uttered a small "Welcome home" to himself and headed down to the rest of the complex.

The home.

He walked through the kitchen and to his room. The door opened, and he dropped his stuff and flopped down on the bed. What to do about Kaiba. What to do about Kaiba.

He bothered to think about what he was thinking. It seemed kind of... silly. but he didn't really care.

He liked Kaiba.

And he smiled at that thought.

So he would do something about it.

Tomorrow.

**[Kaiba Mansion]**

Kaiba sat at his desk in his room, accessing the mainframe to get to the data charge. He needed information.

All the Romanarium said was true-

Joey, or Joseph, Wheeler looked identical to Katsuya Jonouchi.

He was indeed dead.

His grave was indeed dug up.

And, hacking into the schools mainframe, Kaiba saw information correlating with the information of a neurotoxin.

Katsuya Jonouchi was apparently diagnosed with CIPA.

Congenial insensitivity to Pain with anhidrosis. He can't feel pain, heat or cold. A good cover for a corpse with no neural system.

It was a rare disease, with only about sixty patients in the last hundred years or so. And if he had backup from a doctor (Which he indeed did), then it was a believable condition.

This was an interesting new development.

But he needed time to get some more information.

And the Romanarium was right- he needed to get closer to the source.

He needed to get close to Katsuya. Close enough that he could find out everything.

He could start tomorrow.

**[Domino High School]**

They were watching a documentary. It was actually an interesting, if gruesome documentary. They were still studying Civil Rights issues. It spared no detail, and left out no bit of information, terrible or no. The students as a whole looked terrified.

Kaiba sat there, pensive as always. He had seen this all before. It was terrible then, and it was now. The bell suddenly rang. History was the last period of the day today.

The teacher switched on the lights and stopped the documentary.

"So you all know I want a paper by next week on these issues. That is the only homework you have until this time next week. Get it done or you fail. Have a nice day!"

She dismissed them.

Jonouchi grabbed his bag and looked up to see that Kaiba was already half way to the door.

He ran to catch him.

"Kaiba- Hey, Kaiba!"

Reaching out, he grabbed him on the shoulder.

"Yes?"

This was it.

"Um... well.. Would you like to-"

"Are you asking me on a date," Jonouchi started at this, blushing a bit. "Or do you just want ot hang out? Make up your mind and _then_ tell me."

"The second one. D'you wanna hang out? This weekend or something?"

"I've got work."

"Oh... um... then d'you wanna just hang out at lunch?"

"Okay, then."

Jonouchi smiled. He did it.

"Great! See you tomorrow, then!"

Kaiba walked off, and Jonouchi followed, staying a few steps behind. A hand shot out an pulled him backwards.

"What happened to _you_?"

Batchi pulled him back and started walking beside him.

"Who'd you ask out on a date?"

"A date?"

"Oh god," Batchi face-palmed herself. "You don't know what a date is. O, good lord! What is the world coming to!"

"I know what a date is," Jonouchi laughed. "I just didn't ask anyone out."

"Really? 'Cause you looked _real_ smitten with Kaiba over there."

"I think I actually got to where I can talk to him openly."

"You're Jesus."

He laughed again.

"Not quite."

They walked out of the building, chatting.

**[Lunch, The Next Day]**

"So what's up," Jou slid his chair over to Kaiba's desk, pulling out another sandwich.

"Hm."

There was a notebook spread open on his desk, the pages almost completely filled with writing.

"What're you writing down," He craned his neck to take a look.

Kaiba seemed to be pulled back into the real world then. He shut the notebook, hastily putting it back into his bag.

"Nothing you'd be interested in."

"Company stuff?"

"More or less."

There was a silence.

"...Whad'you wanna talk about?"

A shrug of the shoulders.

"Did you process the application?"

"Not yet."

"Oh. Okay..."

"Where are you from?"

Jonouchi didn't think Kaiba would ever ask anything like that.

"Hiroshima."

"Before that? You said your dad was in the military; You must have moved around often."

"Nowhere, really. I mean, we moved to Japan but..."

"Where'd you move from?"

"America. That's what I was told, I was really young. Like, two. We moved from Brooklyn."

Confirmation. Good.

"I bet you've been everywhere with being a CEO and all..."

Jonouchi never really got an answer to that. Kaiba pulled out a book... again.

"Whatever compels you to read that much has _got_ to be in your DNA or something," He muttered, walking over to where Batchi and the others sat.

Kaiba waited until he left and then pulled out the notebook again. He opened it up to the page he was on, formulas, ideas, theories scribbles everywhere. Pulling out a pencil, he wrote down Jonouchi's confirmation of the data he had. To get Jonouchi to admit to CIPA, though... it may have seemed ridiculous to some, but the more sources to verify a suspicion then the more likely that it's a truth, or a very well-spread misconception.

A few minutes later, the bell rang. Kaiba quickly put the notebook back, pulling up his book and getting ready to not pay attention.

Jonouchi moved back to his seat. He noticed kaiba putting the same notebook away. Whatever was in there, it had attracted his interest. But Kaiba's bag was on the other side of his seat, far out of inconspicuous reach. He'd have to think of how to get to it after school or something, then. Whatever was in that notebook, he wanted to know.

**[Below the KaibaCorp Tower- Lab Complex]**

Franz stood at his work table, writing formulas and measuring compounds and chemicals and extracts, only half-focusing on his work. Erich sat at the end of the table, smiling and watching him as he furiously wrote this chemical equation or measured this liquid. It was almost like all the years ago. He was transferred from Berlin to Aushwitz, and Erich, being in the Totenkapfverbände, would watch him work during the inspections he carried out. Usually watching him more than the actual proceedings, which made Franz cringe and his insides crawl recalling some, if not all of the experiments that Erich would ignore.

And he couldn't believe what Erich had told him, either.

He could... _would_, no matter what, stay if he got what he needed.

What did he need? What did he need?

Franz was eager to meet whatever request there was if it meant Erich could stay.

And he needed the research.

Erich needed all the research he had conducted. The notes, formulas, processes he used...

The request threw him at first. There was so much that wasn't _right_ about Erich now, of al times.

He was to serious, to dark underneath whatever flirtatious, playful veneer he put on.

As much as Franz never thought that he would think, or even realize he would long for and miss, was Erich being his playfully reckless, lecherous, perverted, smiling self that he always was. And it used to aggravate him so.

He could have been more careful under the eyes of the SS and the Reich.

He could have been less of a pervert.

He could have been less annoying at times.

But Franz had missed it the most after he had died. The void was astounding.

"What are you thinking about?"

The short sentence cut through his reverie.

"Wherever Rotwang might be."

A hand came up, brushing some hair back behind his ear, pleasantly lingering.

"No you're not."

It moved back, the fingers threading through the light gold strands.

"Will you tell me what you're _really_ thinking?"

The touch moved down to the side of his neck;

"No."

Ghosting back along his jawline.

"You're no fun," Erich pouted, starting to pull him over.

"Doesn't matter. Will you stop being so-"

"Distracting? No."

He didn't answer back, still thinking.

"Did it ever bother you?"

"What?"

"Aushwitz."

Erich had stopped smiling. He looked concerned; concerned and regretful.

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Your inspections."

"Did they bother you at all?"

Franz stopped writing, setting the pen down and laying his hands flat on the desk.

"You ignored all the horrible things that I did. You still said you loved me, but you ignored what I did. Did you really see everything? Or did you just shut it out?"

"I haven't forgotten anything. Every detail... is still in my memory."

"Everything?"

It was a whisper.

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"... No reason."

"That's not an answer."

"Just forget it, please."

"Then why don't you answer my question."

_"Lassen Sie es einfach ist, Erich!"_

"You know you can tell me-"

_"__**Laßt ihm seien Sie!**__"_

"Okay."

Nothing moved. Neither of them said anything.

"You can stay if I get the information," Franz asked, picking his pen back up.

"Yes."

"Can you... can you give me more time?"

A smile, and a soft touch.

"Of course."

**[KaibaCorp Tower]**

The barely remembered application was dug out of a file, sent back down to the secretary with the message "Process immediately."

Kaiba turned to a TV monitor, pressing the power button on the remote. _Domino News_ lit up the screen, playing constantly.

_"...And stocks are down .6 % this quarter. For all you businesses and all you investors out there, look out. Economists say that recent trends in the market may indicate an economic downturn. In other news today, the police are still at a loss trying to find the criminal responsible for the recent suicides that started in December. When asked about the lack of leads in the case, the Chief of police said only this- "We are doing our best with what we have. This will not be over quickly, nor painlessly." Many people are voicing their comments and opinions of inefficiency on the part of the police._

_To date, no evidence has surfaced on these killings other than the menial leads that were presented at the start of the investigation. Anyone with any information at all is encouraged to call. In other news-"_

Kaiba didn't hear much more, muting the sound.

He sat down at his desk, staring for a few moments at nothing, trying to think of who could do this.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by the phone ringing.

"Yes?"

_"There is a party of two here to see you, sir."_

"Who is it?"

_"They say they're names are Leda and Hiram."_

Leda and Hiram... Leda and... They were from the conference not too long ago.

"Let them up."

_"Yessir."_

The elevator door opened not to long after. Out stepped Leda, in her coat and with her river of blonde hair. Hiram wasn't to far behind her, seeming to attract shadows.

"I thought I told you to keep in touch," Leda smiled, sweeping her eyes around.

"When you stop flirting with me long enough to tell me why you're here, I won't bother to kick you out. Until then, you can either be quiet or leave."

Kaiba never looked up from his desk as Leda sat down and Hiram stood behind her.

"Okay, okay. Lighten up. We're here to investigate."

"Investigate what?"

A paper signed, then put over in the 'Outbox" pile.

"The strange sightings of elves and other mythical creatures that have nothing to do with real life."

"All the stoners and so-called mystics and spiritualists are down on the other side of the city, Leda. I'm sure you could ask them."

She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the desk.

"Kaiba, stop working for a minute. Listen to what I have to say."

The pen stopped moving, the papers stopped flying between stacks.

"You have a minute to inform me of why you're here. If you make it good, you might be here longer."

"Okay. I'm here because I need to investigate serial murders. I thought we could... collaborate," She smiled.

"We both have resources. If we combine them, we can have this solved and ended in no time."

Kaiba was still not convinced.

"And why are you so interested in these murders?"

"A fake did it. We both know that much. If the three of us-"

"Three?"

"You don't think I'd leave Hiram out of the fun, do you? Back to the point, man- If we all work together then there's a greater chance we find out who is at fault. We get information out of them, and we use it to shut down the Mausoleum."

It sounded good. But 'Sounded Good' was hardly good enough. Then again, Leda was Vatican. A definite unpredictable, uncontrollable force, but to work in the Vatican she had to be moral. He decided to take the offer at face value.

"Alright."

"Shake on it?"

Leda wore a knowing smile, her hand extended over the desk.

They shook on it.

**[End ch 8]**

I must say- THIS WAS SO SLOW. D:

It'll definitely pick up next chapter.

A bit of an Elaboration on CIPA- As said before, it's a neural disorder in which the patient in question can't feel heat, pain, or cold. For some reason, the nerve system is lacking what it needs to transmit the signals pertaining to those particular sensations to the brain for processing and, therefore, acting upon (i.e.: If a person has CIPA and gets a broken toe, they wouldn't notice and therefore wouldn't know to see a doctor to fix it, which can lead to a number of complications in in itself). I thought it would fit well since I wrote before that Jonouchi's corpse had traces of an unidentified neurotoxin. What that toxin is... I don't know. :P

German/English Translations-

_"Lassen Sie es einfach ist, Erich!"- _"Just let it be, Erich!"

_"__**Laßt ihm seien Sie!**__"- _"Let it be!"


	9. Der Vatikan

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

Ok, so, I went to check this story when it was up on the internet, and... I HADN'T POSTED CHAPTER 8. D:

Which I can't believe I forgot. : /

So, I posted it, and I hope you all enjoy(ed)! ^_^

Aaaannnndd if you can't figure out what 'Der Vatikan' means... I have nothing to say to you...

**[Der Vatikan]**

"I'll stay with you when I'm in Japan," Leda said, standing in the elevator with Kaiba, Hiram standing tall and quietly in the corner.

"Who decided that?"

"I'm not here on official business, and all my money is in an account that goes through the vatican. I can't just pull money out on a whim unless I'm on vacation. Security stuff or something."

"Then why don't you just get a personal bank account," Kaiba asked.

Leda shrugged in response.

"Been to lazy. So, since I have about 400 yen, I think, in all, and I can't afford jack shit, Hiram and I are staying with you. So please, don't argue." She shot him a fake smile.

Kaiba looked over to Hiram. He didn't feel comfortable with the idea of Hiram in his house. Leda he could deal with. Hiram not so much.

Leda apparently caught on.

"Hiram stays, understand? I don't go anywhere without him, he's trustworthy, and he won't mess anything up."

The elevator opened, and the three walked out of the back entrance ot the parking garage.

"Should we follow you in our car?" Leda asked, looking around.

"You have a car?"

"Nope. We got a taxi. So, where's _your_ car?"

Kaiba sighed.

"Come on."

**[Domino Multilane Highway]**

The ride back was annoying, to say the least.

"This is a nice car, the seats are really comfortable!"

"What's that building over there?"

"Is the Diet building in Domino?"

"Do you always go this way? There are so many people."

Kaiba gripped the wheel, glaring out the windshield into the throng of late-hour commuters.

They were in the middle of a four-lane traffic jam. Common for such a populated area. Cars bumper-to-bumper, some impatient drivers and tired salary men honking their car horns in a desperately futile attempt to get the cars moving faster than the inch-an-hour pace.

Leda chattered on in the background, complaining about the traffic jam and yelling at people out the window.

Kaiba felt exhausted. He felt like the pressure in his brain would build and build until his head exploded. It was not a pleasant feeling.

Hiram, thankfully, remained quiet in the back seat. Kaiba looked back at him, an unamused look in his eyes and a grimace on his face. Hiram shot him an apologetic look, or what might have passed for one; with cold, sunken inverted eyes, a cold expression and hollow cheeks. Paper-white skin, and a curtain of dark hair skimming over his high cheekbones. He looked emaciated.

The white iris' moved to look at Leda, narrowing a bit in concentration. The girl jumped a bit as she fell quiet, looking back at her companion.

"What?"

"Quiet down a bit, okay," he rasped out. His voice sounded dead, if that phrase could be used.

Leda nodded, Kaiba sent him a thankful look, and then turned his attention back ot the road.

The traffic inched forwards a little faster than it had before.

**[Kaiba Mansion]**

"The rooms are upstairs. You can take the guest bedrooms. Go up the stair case and to the right. Those are all guest rooms. Pick the ones you want and let me know where you're staying."

Kaiba locked the door behind him, walking up the staircase in the middle of the entrance hall.

The hall itself was tall. It stretched out before Leda and Hiram, doors on either side, and windows up where the walls stretched into the second floor.

"This is elaborate. I was expecting a more Japanese home, not a european mansion," Leda smiled, running up the stairs.

"C'mon, Hiram. Let's pick a room."

Hiram followed, looking around warily.

"How long are we going to stay here," He asked. His eyes kept shifting from one place to another, memorizing.

"Until we get the job done. His holiness the Pope knows we're away on special business, we should have all the time and support we need."

She headed off to a room on the right.

"Why don't we stay here," She asked, walking in before stopping in the doorway. "My God..."

"What is it?" Hiram walked up behind her, stunned into silence as well.

"This is honestly the best room I have ever seen."

A large bed, a window covering about half the wall, drapes, a couch, a beuro, everything.

"And there's even a bathroom to boot," Leda smiled, looking into the white tiled room.

**[-_-_-_-]**

Jonouchi typed away on a keyboard, his face temporarily bleached a bluish-white in the light of the computer screen. It was a stark contrast against the black room. Sadie had showed him where a computer room was. Multiple all-in-one units were lined up against both walls, blacked out windows opposite him blacked out, and a semi-old, updated Kary Mainframe in the middle of the room, modifications stretching up and through the celling. Jonouchi had no doubt that it was more powerful than most supercomputers. She told him to keep the lights on, that using the computer in the dark was bad for him. He turned the lights off anyway; he preferred the dark.

He clicked away on google, looking at maps of places, exploring the grand canyon through the video screen. He switched it over to the 'search' function, resting his head on his hands a moment to decide what to do next.

He typed "Seto Kaiba" into the search bar and clicked 'Google Search.'

What turned up was a wikipedia page on Kaiba and His business, multiple articles from news outlets, financial information, even fan sites (That made him cringe).

He clicked the Wikipedia article.

What came up was surprisingly precious little information. No birthday, with just a question mark and a dash to the current year. His age was put at 16, however. He looked it, too.

The information was exceedingly general- The CEO of Kaiba Corporation, one little brother... He was adopted, that was something Jonouchi didn't know. There were no records of him before he was, though, if the article was right. That was about all that it said. But the little nugget of information he gained was valuable- Kaiba hadn't really existed before he was adopted and thrown into his life now.

He wanted to find out more about Kaiba now... all the more reason to get to know him.

Jonouchi thought on it for a moment, staring at the dark wall.

The thoughts were quickly torn from him, however, by a loud growl from his stomach.

"Good lord..."

**[Kaiba Mansion}**

Kaiba sat in his room, his second office, after putting Mokuba to bed. He smiled as he thought about what his little brother said. He made a new friend, and he got a high score on a book report he wrote on "Number the Stars." He remembered that book, how he laughed at it when it came out. He remembered World War Two Germany. He wasn't much for the affairs of humans or humanitarianism, but he couldn't abide the death camps... So he fled to Russia, immigrating to Japan during the Cold War, after Reconstruction was well underway.

His eyes fell out of focus and his hand stopped moving the pen over packets of papers. His reminiscing about the past, something he usually didn't do, was interrupted by a pang in his stomach, a slight noise. It had been about a week since he had last fed... Time to go hunting, lest a repeat of last time happen. As he walked out, he told the servants to inform Leda of his whereabouts should she inquire.

**[Domino City-Red Light District]**

Jonouchi walked through the crowded streets. He really didn't like it here. The people were shifty, the corners and alleyways dark and sticky with oily shadows, and the blood was disgusting. Diluted and curdled with alcohol and drugs- Crack Cocaine, Pot, Beer... it all mixed together in a cesspool of disgustingly abused, horrible-tasting red life.

Oh, how he wanted something else, something cleaner. The blond stopped for a moment, a thought or two snapping in place. _ _ _ _ _ _ had never said that he only had to eat here. He smiled to himself. He turned around and ran back to the better side of town.

**[Domino City- Downtown shopping district]**

Kaiba walked down a well-lit, busy street, being as inconspicuous as possible. Normal clothes for a change; A hooded sweatshirt, pulled up to hide his face and his hair, a pair of blue jeans, and some old tennis shoes from god knows when. And, for good measure, a pair of earphones. Seto Kaiba, dressed for the normal urban lifestyle. Who'd've thought it?

Walking past the tall buildings, there were a few alleyways, and, Kaiba was sure, a few hobo's as well. That would do. He turned down a random one, making a note of where he was going and what building he was going by. There were a few... communities, you could say, of homeless people around Downtown Domino. He moved his hand in his pocket, feeling the cold steel handle of his hand gun, making sure it was there for the hundredth time. Just in case of trouble.

The buildings wound up, with a wall here and a fence there. A few homeless people watched as he passed. He stopped at a corner, looking around it to see a woman sitting there. Well past her midlife crisis, it was safe to say she would not be missed. He turned the corner, walking up behind her. His mouth salivated at the thought of blood, as it always did. Time to feed, then.

Back at the main strip, Jonouchi walked down the sidewalk, buffeted by people. There was an alley, here, there, that man in the book shop, that woman in the jewelry store, that kid in the gas station, bumming a cigarette off of his friend, or the girl at the ABC Packing store, handing over a fake ID to purchase a bottle of Smirnoff. So many choices! He smiled to himself. He wasn't even that thirsty, and he was acting like he was starved. He just needed a bit of a meal.

Jonouchi spotted an alleyway. That looked promising. Good blood, out of the way. Perfect. He ran down the alleyway, eager to get all this over with. Left, left, right, left again. He spotted someone after a short time; a random someone. He didn't much care. Walking up, he put what he was about to do out of his mind, focusing on the act instead of the ethics. It was a strangely enjoyable sensation, giving himself over to it. It just felt right. He towered over the person, smiling to himself.

_Good..._

Not to far away, Kaiba let the corpse drop to the ground. He could still feel the hazy bloodlust in the back of his mind; the high he got. He was just letting himself slip into a state of warm security when he hear small footsteps come up in front of him.

"Gramma!"

There was a little kid standing there, tearing up horribly, holding a small bag of food.

Oh, good lord. He should have noticed her sooner, then he could have been out of here. He was getting old. He was exposed. Mouth open in surprise, blood dripping slightly down his chin. He took a step back.

The little kid looked up at him, scared. She hiccuped a few times, focusing on the blood.

"Y-you-"

He melted into another side alley instantly, dissapearing from anyone's view. Not magic, just practice.

Night eyes scanned for a fire escape. There was one with a ladder up. It wasn't a big jump, only six feet or so. He went for it.

As expected, there was no problem. Climbing out onto the roof of the building, he looked around, trying to find the tower and then go from there. It shouldn't be to hard.

After a moment, he spotted it. Over to his right. Legs started moving, carrying his body over rooftops and alleyways, sliding behind water tanks and stairwells and into the smallest shadow to keep away from people.

Ten minutes or so into the trip, he heard a loud 'bang' off in another alleyway. It was probably just a gang fight.

Another bang quickly echoed around, followed by an unusual amount of screaming.

His curiosity piqued, Seto sneaked to the edge of the roof he was on, crouched and looking down on the scene. Very good night vision helped.

Down in the alleyway, a man was running from something he couldn't see. His ratty Goodwill turtleneck was ripped up, his patch-ridden jacket shredded, and his neck and chest lacerated in parts.

_"Sloppy"_ was all Seto could think about it. His mind really was slipping.

Someone ran after the man; right on his heels, actually.

And Seto knew that someone. He _knew_ that someone. Nobody else in Domino had hair like that. Or clothes like that.

He watched in partial surprise at what happened next.

The blond cornered the man, who was shaking like a pitiful leaf, trying to press himself into the wall and away from the fast- approaching menace.

A veritable gore-fest happened next.

After the blond was done, he hurriedly wiped his mouth with his blue shirt sleeve and ran off, looking around the exit to make sure nobody had seen. In seconds it looked as if Katsuya Jonouchi had never been there. Nobody would find the body for days, if not weeks.

Seto remembered that phrase "True blue never shows stains" before backing away from the edge of the roof and heading back to his home. This was important; this was proof.

Now if he could get Leda to acknowledge it- But he couldn't. He had seen it, but what proof did he have other than his own story. Without hard evidence, Leda accept he saw something but wouldn't act on it. That was problematic. But he had to tell her anyways. She had to know. Proof or not, she had to be aware of it. But he felt exhausted tonight; it would have to wait for tomorrow.

**[Ende]**

There be PROOF! This is getting to be Setocentric... it'll run that way for a while, I guess. Hang in there, guys!


	10. Verantwortung

WOW. I just went a read all the review for 'Fake' so far... and they're all so great!

You readers are certainly awesome~~! I do believe you deserve a piece of cake or sugary item of your choice for being amazing people, but sadly... I can't give a pice of cake or sugary item of your choice to you. D:

Well, I think the story should get started now, don't you all! :D

**Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I'd be rich if I did. :) Oh, and no Hellsing, either. And no Metropolis. ):**

(Verantwortung=Responsibility)

Kaibcentricity, plox. :3

Also, I'm speeding up the puppyshipping agenda. Either now or next chapter. You guys have waited patiently long enough. (I sense the words 'Mokuba Catalyst,' Even though he hasn't been in this story. ._.)

**[Verantwortung]**

Seto stumbled out of bed; he was exhausted, gummy-eyed, stiff, and with so much dread at what the day would hold for him.

He walked across a curtained window, hissing a bit when his flesh his a small ray of sneaky dawn. The seared meat smelled odd, closing up quickly and leaving no trace it had been here before.

Hurried footsteps echoed quickly around the room; brisk and with purpose. He went from his room to the hallway and started checking the guest rooms. He didn't remember Leda telling him where she was holed up, but it didn't matter. He needed to find her.

Another room, and another, and another... was his house really this empty?

After the fifth room or so he found her. She was laying in bed with Hiram. She looked asleep, but her breathing... the pattern was different. She was definitely awake. He walked over to her, making sure not to wake up her companion.

"I know that you are awake. And I would never have thought you for one to sleep with your partner."

"Well," She turned over with a groan, dragging out the 'll'. "That's kind of what 'Partner' means, isn't it? Someone you're intimate with. Which means you should be waking up next to our little suspect now, right?"

Kaiba kept an unamused look on his face.

"Why, pray tell, would I want to do that?"

"Because he is the one person you have to get close to to win this war. It's not to hard, Kaiba."

"Then why don't you do it?"

Pale green eyes gave him a look of amusement.

"Am I sensing a hint of irate, short-tempered resentment at the prospect of getting laid? Which you desperately need, by the way."

Seto had talked to multiple vatican employees in his time, but Leda was, by far, the crudest of them all.

"Look, that is not what I am here to talk to you about. I have valuable information."

This made the agent sit up, the comforter sliding down her chest. Her very naked chest.

"Would you put a shirt on?"

Kaiba couldn't help but wonder how in the hell she had ever gotten a job with the Vatican, of all places.

"Nope, can't get one without showing you my naked ass. What's the info?"

Kaiba's blue eyes rolled; This- _this here_- would make his day very stressful.

"I saw him."

"Saw who?"

"Jonouchi."

Leda gave him a confused look.

"Isn't that what people normally do? See others?"

"Not like that! No, I saw him feeding."

"So does he crudely consume mass quantities of raw beef or does he just go for the whole cow?"

"That's not the point! Be serious! He fed off of some hobo- Vampiric feeding, not normal eating!"

"And where's your proof?"

Kaiba knew this would come.

"I was an eyewitness, Leda; Doesn't that count as proof?"

"No. Not that I think you would, Kaiba, but people lie. You may be older that anyone on the planet, but vampires lie. I'm sure you lie- or you have lied. While your word is something to go on, it's not hard proof. We need to catch him in the act."

Leda drew her knees up against her chest, resting her chin on them. On her back, a giant black tattoo of a celtic cross was printed, touching her top and bottom vertebrae and her shoulders.

"I would love to jump on this, but I'm just here to help when we knew exactly what our situation is. And then-Only then- can we get this over with."

Kaiba stood, sighing. He had a practiced frown on his face; transfixed there for God knows how long.

"There's other evidence. There's what you looked up for me. He's _dead_, Leda, and he's walking around displaying vampiric tendencies. When are you going to do something about it!"

"I would love to, Kaiba, but Jonouchi's just a part of it! There's a nest of them that need to be _eradicated_, and we need the whole might of the organization _and_ the whole black ops forces at the Vatican _and_ various other organizations world-wide backing up up to put this in motion! We need one hundred percent hard proof before we can move, because not everyone's sold on this idea. It's not a simple matter. I can't do anything until we actually get the information from the horse's mouth. I can't go out of my way for your pet project."

"So you want me to incarcerate him and then torture him," Kaiba asked.

"It wouldn't be a far stretch for you, but there are other ways to get information."

"...Alright. Until then, I'll take responsibility for it."

He was almost out the door when Leda's voice called him back.

"Do you know what that means, Kaiba?"

He turned.

"Do I know what _what_ means?"

"Responsibility."

"Of course I know what it means!"

"Really? Are you sure?" Leda only received a glare as a response.

"Do you see this tattoo on my back, Kaiba? Of the cross?"

No reply.

Leda gently turned a snoring Hiram on his back.

"You see Hiram's tattoo? It matches. This means I take full, complete responsibility for him. Everything he does, I account for because I made the descicion to help him. To keep him here with me. If you follow through with your investigation of Jonouchi, if you get close to him, you have to accept abject responsibility for everything that you both do. No matter what you have to do, no matter what happens. If you get close to him, are you sure you can do what you must to end all of this?"

"What, you think he's going to be my boyfriend," Kaiba snorted, leaning against the doorframe. He pulled out a silver gun.

"I can do what I need to," He said, gazing at the menacing piece of metal. "It won't be a problem."

"I wouldn't be so sure," A smirk to rival Kaiba's appeared on Leda's face. "I see that look you get when you talk about him. Just don't get in over your head. Now. Don't you need to get to school? Go on, Shoo!"

Kaiba quietly pocketed the gun and walked out of the room closing the door behind him.

What day was it...? He didn't much care. He wouldn't go anywhere today. School could wait. Work. He needed to work. His mind was too frazzled with the minuscule and odd-hours of sleeping and wanting to jump at what he had uncovered. He was becoming too impatient. He remembered multiple people saying something along those lines. It didn't much matter now, though.

Stepping into his study, he sat down behind a computer console. Souped-up Mac's and a modified KaibaCorp mainframe. His personal system. Opening up a project file, he felt his mind calm a bit.

**[-_-_-_-]**

Kaiba checked the digital readout on a small clock. It was eleven. He missed Mokuba coming home from school. The kid would definitely be in bed now; he should go check up on him. Shutting his office door behind him, he quickly made it to Mokuba's room. When he opened the door, he noticed that Mokuba wasn't there.

Jesus Christ.

He didn't even bother to shut the door- he automatically started speed-searching the house. Mokuba wouldn't be in any of the guest rooms- he could eliminate almost the entire upper floor. Time to check downstairs.

He ran through the library, dining room, living room, even checked in the bathrooms. All dead ends. The only places left were the kitchen and the TV room. The TV room was just down the hall, He would check there on the way to he kitchen. If Mokuba wasn't there, hopefully he would just be getting a nighttime snack. If not, well... He had no patience for kidnappers and felons.

The door to the TV room was closed. He grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open, hurriedly conducting a visual sweep.

Shoulders relaxed and vertebrae curved at Seto saw Mokuba sitting right in front of him, in his pajamas, playing, of all things at this ungodly hour (Especially for a grade schooler), Xbox.

"Mokuba, what are you doing?"

"Xbox Live."

"Get yourself to bed now."

"Hold on! I'm almost done."

"_Now_, Mokuba!"

The boy muttered a quick goodbye, shut of the console, and trudged wearily up to his brother.

"I've never seen _you_ sleep."

That threw Seto for a moment.

"...Well, when people start paying you not to sleep, then you can stay up as long as you want. Until then, you need to go to bed, okay? You have school tomorrow, right?"

"Yee-ess."

They reached Mokuba's room. Slowly, he opened the door and shuffled over to his bed. Seto walked in there with him, giving him a hug and tucking him into bed.

"Hey, Seto?"

"Yes?"

"Can I invite a friend over tomorrow?"

"Can you ask me tomorrow at breakfast? It's eleven thirty right now. You need rest, okay?"

"Alright... 'Night, Seto."

"'Night, Mokuba."

He walked out of the room and shut the door. His nerves were still tense. He needed a bit of a stress reliever. Heading back into his study, he pulled out the bottom drawer on the right. Removing a few folders and a notebook, he opened up a false bottom. There sat a knife, another gun, and a small modified bayonet blade. He grabbed the knife and the bayonet and headed out.

**[-_-_-_-]**

His reaction time was slower by a half of a second. Still much faster than any fake, but God... why was he getting so _slow_? It was ridiculous. There was one coming from behind him. Pulling up the bayonet in his right hand and the gun in his left, he turned on his left heel. The effect was two-fold- One fake was decapitated, and the one coming from a shed top behind him was shot in the transitional area between the abdomen and the groin... no, wait, it was slightly lower... he had hit him in the groin. It almost merited laughter. He walked over to the place where the fake had fallen. It didn't look to feel any pain... and why would it? It was just a corpse. It couldn't really feel anything.

But it might know something...

Walking over to the writhing corpse, he aimed a gun at it's face and pinned it's hand to the ground with the bayonet.

"What is the Mausoleum planning?"

The fake gasped and sputtered, sucking in wind but not breathing out any carbon dioxide. Little founts of blood spurt up as he stuttered; he was bleeding into his lungs... But that wasn't right. He had been shot in the groin. That was no where near his lungs. He pulled out a small knife from his pocket. Making a "V" incision from shoulder to shoulder, and a line from the intersection to the bellybutton. He cut a line across the bottom of it to make an upside-down "T" shape. Blood and fat welled up around the cuts; This was always one of the worst parts. The blood was a dark, coagulated color and highly viscous. It was like glue. Digging his fingers into the cuts, he pulled back the skin. The fake brought up hands to stop him; its eyes were whited out and blood was frothing around its mouth. Seto grabbed the hands at the wrist, pushing them down and pinning them to the dirt with the bayonet. He continued his crude examination. The ribs were stark white and the muscle was withered. Arteries convulsed and writhed with the task of squeezing blood through. Eyes turned to the lungs. Bone was fractured. Arteries were ruptured. His bronchioles were torn and serious damage was done to the esophagus. There was a small metal capsule in all the gore; battery-like. With a glowing orange cap. He went to dig it out.

As soon as it was in his hands, the cap turned green for a moment. Then a blinking red. 'Blinking Red' being universal vernacular for 'Very very bad'. Seto guessed he had a minute, at most, to ditch it all. Dropping the capsule back into the chest cavity, he ran around the corner of a brick building. Not two seconds later, there was a warm orange glow. Peeking around the corner, Seto saw the corpse enveloped in warm orange flame. The damn thing had been rigged. The rest of the corpses, though, were still whole. He dragged them into a pile on top of the already burning body. It created a small bonfire.

Taking a few steps back, he turned to go back to his home.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Something was wrong. Jonouchi felt eyes on him for the millionth time that day. Kaiba kept glancing at him out of the corners of his eyes. Good God it was making him feel nervous. He scrunched down a little bit more in his seat, gripping his pencil hard enough to split the wood. Crap. He looked at his hand. There was a splinter. a deep one. He raised his uninjured hand.

"Yes, Jonouchi?"

"May I please go to the nurses office," He inquired.

"Do you feel sick?"

"No, I've got a splinter in my hand. It's pretty deep..."

"Alright. Go get a bandaid." The teacher looked at him questioningly. He could explain later.

"Thank you."

"You and Kaiba head down ot the nurses' office together. I'm not having one of you run off without the other telling me."

Ah, crap.

"Yeas ma'am."

He stood up to go. Beside him, Kaiba looked tense. They walked out of the room silently; feeling everyone's stares on the back of his neck was almost as bad as feeling Kaiba stare at him. _Almost_.

The door shut and they walked down the clean hallway together. The sky was overcast again.

The nurse's office was on the ground floor by the office, where as they're classroom was on the third. There was an elevator, but that was only for disabled kids. Didn't much matter; stairs it was.

The silence as they descended said staircase was uncomfortable. His hand out before him, Jonouchi decided to stare intensely at the splinter in it. It would bleed when he pulled it out.

_Shit, shit, shit!_

"Are you okay?"

The question hung in the air.

"You keep staring at me," Jonouchi looked away from his hand and at Kaiba. The brunette looked uncomfortable.

"Why does that mean anything's wrong with me?"

They stopped.

"Because you don't stare at people, you stare at a computer screen or a book page. You're not interested in people."

_You're not interested in anyone. You're not interested in having friends, or getting to know me._ Even though he put forth the effort to know him.

"I don't see how you can just sit there and be all to yourself."

"That's none of your business."

"Well, maybe I'm trying to _make_ it my business! If you weren't so short-sided when it comes to things outside your work, maybe you wouldn't be such a bastard to everyone!"

"And how can I be such a bastard to everyone if I never talk to anyone? They aren't worth my time, anyway. They're-"

"_This_ is why you're a bastard! You don't need to talk to people to be a bastard to them!"

"We're supposed to be going to the nurse's office. Shouldn't we stop arguing so that we can get your hand taken care of, or should I leave you here? I've got better places to be that babysitting you. Or better yet, maybe I could just rip that splinter out of your hand and send you back to the classroom."

Jonouchi was silent. He didn't really know what to say to the threats.

It only lasted for a moment.

"Fine. _Fine._ Go if you want, I'll head on the the nurse's office. This is what people mean when they call you a bastard, Kaiba. And you are a god-damned bastard."

He walked off, glaring down at his hand and leaving Kaiba on the landing. If the guy was going to be an ass, fine, he would let him.

He was half way down the staircase when he thought someone was behind him. He looked back to see Kaiba there, trying to look uninterested, but his eyes didn't match with the rest of his expression. They were... confused a bit.

"Alright then."

Jonouchi turned back around and kept walking, arm still bent, hand still open, palm-up.

They reached the nurses' office without incident.

Opening the door, Kaiba walked in, looking around before turning and saying "She isn't here."

"We can get out a splinter by ourselves, Kaiba, the nurse doesn't have to be here."

"It doesn't matter whether she's here or not, Jonouchi. Come here."

Kaiba walked over to a rolling set of drawers, looking through them before pulling out a pair of tweezers.

Jonouchi swallowed. It really kinda scared him- maybe Kaiba would poke his eye out with the tweezers. The guy probably didn't like him all that much anyway.

But he did come with him after their little spat...

The blonde felt like a black snake was curling at the pit of his stomach; it was anxiety.

He walked up to Kaiba anyway. The brunette took his hand- the snake curled itself tighter, knotting itself together. If Jonouchi had a heartbeat, it would be ten times faster than normal. Kaiba's hands were abnormally cold.

The rest of the feeling was quickly murdered by the pain of the splinter being pulled out. It went in at and angle, away from the skin, poking down into his flesh. He hissed as a small bit of blood welled up, oozing like half-congealed glue. It looked black, collecting together on his palm.

He looked up to see Kaiba staring at it, looking enthralled.

It lasted a moment before the wound was wiped with a napkin and then a sanitizing napkin and had a bandaid put over it. Jonouchi didn't feel a sting as the alcohol from the napkin slid into the wound.

Kaiba stood up after he was done, tossing the napkin and bandaid wrapper, along with the splinter, into the trashcan. He turned to leave.

Jonouchi didn't move; he stared dazedly at his hand.

"Are you going to stand there all day like an idiot or are you going to come back to class?"

The blonde started.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure."

He followed Kaiba out of the room.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Seto climbed in his car, turning the engine over and backing out of the school parking lot. He had to get down to the lab. At a particularly long stoplight, he checked his pocket to make sure that the napkin with Jonouchi's blood was still there, folded up quite nicely, thank you.

It was.

The light finally turned green. He sped on, trying not to kill anyone in his excitement. He finally reached the building, pulling into the parking garage and hurried inside, barking at the receptionist to move all the appointments for today to next week and not to disturb him. Getting into the elevator, he pressed the buttons to go down to the lab complex. His foot tapped impatiently on the linoleum. The elevator could not move fast enough.

Walking through the hallway, going through the motions to get into the lab, he stormed into the room and pulled out the napkin. Franz was at a microscope, examining something, while Rotwang was working on a schematic.

Seto slammed the napkin down onto the table next to the scientist, startling him out of his reverie.

"_Yes,_" Franz was irritated. "I'm studying a photo-resistant enzyme. What is it that you want?"

"Blood sample analysis. Get it done, fax the results to me. I'll be at my home."

With that, the CEO turned and left.

"Whose blood is this!"

"Jonouchi Katsuya!"

And he was gone. He wanted to get home. He was tired, he felt sluggish. He wanted nothing more than to go to his room, shut the blinds, draw the curtains closed, and curl up in his dark bedroom to sleep. He was getting damn lazy. He couldn't though- he had work to do.

It wasn't a long drive to his home. After pulling into the driveway, he checked the mail. Tax notices from the IRS, a utility bill, and a census survey. They would be dealt with later.

Walking into the entrance hall, his ears seemed to twitch as they picked up the slight sound of yelling.

He walked towards the source of the noise; the TV room. The door was open; inside was the most raucous group he had ever seen. Mokuba, Jonouchi, Leda, Yuugi (Whom Seto thanked the heavens for, as he was-at this moment- the one quite person) and Batchi. Good lord. Mokuba turned to look at him, smiling and greeting him. He waved back, unsmiling, tired. Mokuba saw, and, excusing himself, pulled his brother back to talk to him.

"Are you mad with me," He asked.

Seto just shook his head- he was getting more and more tired.

"No- no, I'm to out of it. I just want you to tell me before you have friends over."

"I did, remember? This morning."

Mokuba had most likely told him. Seto just couldn't remember.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine."

"Are you alright, Seto?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look," The boy paused, unsure. "Overworked. You look... beaten."

_Beaten_.

No.

God no. Not yet.

Not Seto Kaiba.

"It's just work. Go on- get back to your friends."

"Okay," Mokuba gave him a hug that he half-heartedly returned. "You get some sleep," The boy said before heading off.

Seto headed up the stairs to his room.

He pulled off his jacket and shoes,keeping the lights off and flopping down on the bed.

Sleep. He just wanted sleep right now...

It felt like he had just closed his eyes when he heard the door open and close.

Probably Mokuba.

Whatever; too tired to care.

Rolling over, he pulled a pillow down to sleep on.

A careful weight settled on the side of the bed. Someone was leaning over him.

His eyes opened slightly. The presence was cold. It was nonexistent, almost. He never relied on intuition or some mystical 'sixth sense,' but he could definitely say something was out of the ordinary here.

Turning over to get a good look at who had disturbed him, he was almost surprised to see Jonouchi leaning over him, mouth open, inscicors one-fourth of an inch long and sharp, and with a look of utter surprise on his face. The boy had just twitched in an attempt to flee when Kaiba reached up and grabbed his neck.

Jonouchi may have been engineered by super-scientists, but Seto Kaiba had countless years of experience and practice behind him. The boy didn't have a chance.

_"What are you doing?"_ he ground out, relishing the fearful look he got.

"I-I... uh-"

The hand tightened. Jonouchi flinched, trying to draw in a breath.

"Shove it. You don't need to breathe."

The motions stopped.

"How do you know," Jonouchi rasped. His eyes were wide, stressed and confused. He looked mortified.

"No reason for you to know."

"_How_ do you know, Kaiba?"

Should he tell him? He made no motion to, completely relaxed.

"If you want to feed, then you'll want fresher blood. Go downtown or something."

"_How do you know, Kaiba?_"

"I just know."

"Bullshit."

Kaiba just grunted as a reply.

"It doesn't feel right."

Fell right? _Feel_ right? Sure. Okay. Fine. Sixth sense. He could play along.

"And you feel dead," He replied.

"So do you. You're one of them, right?"

"One of what?"

"The vampires."

The statement hung in the air for a while. Neither was willing to answer, neither was willing to talk.

"What I am is no concern of yours," Kaiba replied. "You'll want to leave."

"Maybe if you let go of my throat-" The hand promptly dropped. Jonouchi didn't move.

"Leave."

Jonouchi made no move to go. He knelt over Kaiba, watching him.

"What are-"

A shrill beep from a small fax machine interrupted the question.

Kaiba groaned, sitting up and sliding off the bed. The machine sat on a shelf next to some books, and was there just to be sure he got messages. Trudging over to it, he pulled out the paper the machine and read over the important parts of what it said.

_Results from Lab Test_

_Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine are mixed into the blood. _

_Plasma is deteriorating. Red blood cells are deteriorating. White Blood-cell count is abnormally high. _

_No discernable blood type. _

_Preservatives are present in the blood at abnormally high levels. _

_Traces of organic nanites and transistor metal threads present. _

After scanning over the rest of the report, Kaiba folded it and put it into his pocked. Jonouchi was still there on his bed.

"Weren't you leaving," He asked.

"Weren't you answering my questions?"

"No. I have nothing to say to you. Leave."

"Not until I get answers. Tell me."

"No."

"At least answer one of my questions!"

Jonouchi was pouting a bit, his arms crossed and his back straight. His eyes narrowed menacingly.

It was an odd mixture of funny and cute.

"Fine. _Fine_. I'm a vampire, I'm tired, and not in a very good mood. Will you leave now?"

Smiling, the blonde got off the bed and walked towards the door, stopping just short of it.

He turned, giving Kaiba a curious look.

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"You finding out about... y'know."

"What is there to be sorry about when it comes to that? If you're going to be sorry for anything, it should be tresspassing in parts of my home. Who invited you over, anyway?"

"Mokuba."

That's right.

Something clicked in Kaiba's mind. He could find evidence this way! Jonouchi was here, now, he could ask him-

"Come back again tomorrow night."

"Why?"

"... Important matters need to be discussed. That's all you need to know."

Jonouchi was silent for a moment before smiling a bit and nodding.

"Sure."

He left, and Kaiba closed the door and climbed back into bed. That was just awkward. His eyes shut and he fell asleep almost instantly.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Jonouchi breathed heavily as he leaned on the wall outside of Kaiba's room. He held his hand over his mouth to try and calm himself down. Kaiba knew now. Good lord, he knew. He knew that Jonouchi wasn't exactly... human. Jonouchi knew that Kaiba wasn't human, either. A fair trade, he guessed. It's wasn't a spontaneous, made-for-two movie moment like you'd always see in movie. It was subdued. It was awkward.

He was coming ack tomorrow, to. Walking back downstairs (He had told everyone that he was going to the bathroom- the need for blood was starting to get to him) he felt that same snake that was there earlier came back, wending it's way down his intestines and twisting tighter and tighter.

He almost couldn't wait for tomorrow.

Going back into the TV room, he remembered why he left earlier. Apologizing to Mokuba and Leda and Yuugi, he excused himself by saying he felt sick and then went to go home. He could get a meal there.

**[The Next Day]**

The end of school came slowly. It was close to torture. When the final bell rang (To everyone's pleasure and relief) Jonouchi was _out of there_. He wondered how he would get back to Kaiba's house. He would probably catch a bus, he saw Kaiba leave during lunch. The bust stop was downtown. It wouldn't take him to long to get there. He ran around other students, out the gates, and down the street. A small crowd of people were gathered around it. He waited near the back, holding onto the loop that hung don from piping running along the celling of the bus.

The stop closes to Kaiba's house was still a few blocks away from the house itself, but it wouldn't take to long to get there. No problem. Kaiba himself, though... A _vampire._ Honest to goodness _vampire_. Jonouchi had been wondering-

How old was he?

Did he have powers?

Was it anything like the movies he watched with his _ _ _ _ _ _ sometimes?

He remembered his _ _ _ _ _ _ telling him he was something like a vampire. He drank blood, he burned in the sunlight, he had above average strength and speed and stamina... but something was different about him... He stood at the bus stop, his fingertips feeling discretely at the USB port on his hip. _ _ _ _ _ _ Called it a USB port. All he could feel of it right now was a slight imprint. A small panel slid back and revealed the slot.

The bus pulled up, and he stumbles up the steep steps with everyone else. The stop nearest to Kaiba's house was a few blocks away from his actual house.

The stop came up quick enough- Jonouchi hopped off, jogging down the street. The mansion wasn't hard to find- the biggest house near the end of the block.

He walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. A diminutive, pudgy butler that Mokuba had identified as Roland answered. The man creeped him out- a weird smile and the glasses that hid his eyes. And the fact that he never seemed to make a noise when he walked. maybe Roland wasn't human.

"Katsuya Jonouchi, correct?"

"Y-yessir. I'm here to see-"

"To see master Kaiba," Roland opened the door and stood off to the side. "Do come in. Master Kaiba is in his office. Follow me."

And they set off up the stairs.

When they reached the office, Jonouchi heard muffles shouting.

Roland raised a small, pudgy hand to knock on the door. As soon as the flesh would have touched the wood, the door flew open. A volupitous, strawberry blonde girl was standing there, yelling at Kaiba, who was standing with a very calm, scary rage behind the desk. The girl was either very brave or very stupid.

"-If you're not going to _do_ anything-"

"I have put an immense amount of effort and _money_ and, most notably, _blind faith_ into this matter. Into your handling of this matter. What are you doing with it, Leda? What are _my resources_ and _my money_ going into?"

"If you knew-"

"_If I knew anything about this I would be more reassured that I'm putting MY FAITH into the right person!_ Give me some indication that this _is_ the case and I will _gladly_ let you resume your activities."

The girl, Leda, stood there, staring angrily, before muttering a dishearted 'fine' and stomping out of the office.

Kaiba sat back down and looked up at him, Waving a hand for him to come in. Roland waved his through the door before shutting it.

Time to dance, then.

"Have a seat."

Kaiba motioned to a set of well-worn victorian-style leather chairs. The shiny substance was soft and firm when he sat down on it, not at all plasticky. It felt quite comfortable.

The sat in silence for a small wile, neither talking, just staring at each other.

It was an uncomfortable silence, but it lasted for only a short while.

"So... what's up?"

Kaiba stayed silent. Jonouchi tried to remain as relaxed as possible; the question seemed awkward. It hung in the air, unanswered, before Kaiba spoke.

"I need information, mutt."

"I'm sorry!"

"Jonouchi. I need information, Jonouchi."

"On what?"

"You."

If it worked, Jonouchi's heart would have skipped a beat. Kaiba wanted to know about him. _Kaiba_ wanted to _know _about _him_. It wasn't nearly as flattering as Jonouchi would have liked it to be.

"What information?"

Kaiba pulled a drawer open, flipping through what Jonouchi presumed was filed before pulling one out. He opened it up, pulling out a few sheets of paper.

Jonouchi leaned forward to get a look.

"Your job application."

"Oh. What about it?"

"Your birthday."

Needless to say, the bold wasn't following.

"What about it?"

Kaiba handed the paper to him.

"Take a look at your birthday."

"What about it?"

"The ninth of October? This year? If you're going to lie, at least come up with a good one."

The ninth... the _ninth_... how could he have...?

"Is this going to be just about business?"

Kaiba replaced the file, giving Jonouchi something of a mild incredulous look.

"What else would it be about?"

"I was hoping it would be more... personal."

Kaiba was taken aback for a moment.

"Personal? What would it be personal for?"

"Well... Y'know, it's... It's just that..."

Jonouchi rubbed his hand up and down his arm, not looking at Kaiba and trying to screw up the courage to say it...

"You like me."

Well, _that_ certainly was not expected.

"I _what!"_

Jonouchi certainly hadn't expectedKaiba to say it.

"You like me. Harbor feelings of attraction. Infatuated. Crush. What term would _you_ like to use?"

"What_ term _would I like to use!"

"I would think that you have a preference."

Jonouchi still couldn't say much to that. It was true- his more-than-somewhat neglected feelings had grown like mold- not to say that he had the same feelings towards mold that he did in this particular case. He rather liked Kaiba, obviously.

"I-I don't... know..."

"Whatever those feelings are, you can consider them reciprocated. Now-"

Pale hands slammed loudly on the mahogany desk. Jonouchi jumped forward in his seat, sitting even more on edge than before.

"That's all you've got to say? 'Consider them reciprocated'! That's- that's cold."

Kaiba, who had picked up the papers again, put them back down on the desk, looking coldly over them to the blonde.

"What do you want me to say? Do yu want it to all come out in some sappy, made-for-two movie moment?"

"W-well, no, but-"

"Jonouchi, I do share in those feelings. I do not nescicarily want to get down to it right this moment, as mean as cold-hearted as that may sound. There is enough time for relationships later There are more pressing matters at this moment."

"Is that what you were arguing with the girl about? Something..."

"Daywalkers. So-called daywalkers. I'm putting money into research. At least, I was. It's a genetics research program. There wasn't a whole lot to it before I pulled the funding. The money can be diverted to more useful things now. Now..." Kaiba steepled his fingers. "I want to know about you."

**Ende part 10**

Sooo, yeah. I'm watching "Blade" right now (Since I've seen "Trinity" And I've wanted to watch the first one), so, yeah, It's the craziest piece of sh*t I've ever seen, but a rare 90's cinema gem, I think. It's a fun movie, though, I would definitely reccommend it for people who like gore-fests. :'D

And Frost is one of the coolest over-the-top villains I've ever seen. P:

So, yeah, I think "Blade" Will be a fair influence on this. You've been warned.


	11. Zwanzig Fragen

Ye-e-e-e-p. Ch.11 is HUR. So all the minor characters who've only had about a chapter and a half dedicated to them will probably get some more time here and now. P:

After Jou and kaiba, of course.

**I OWN NOTHING HUR.**

"zwanzig Fragen" mans "Twenty Questions"

**[Zwanzig Fragen]**

"I want to know about you."

"You want to know about me?"

"I didn't ask about a monkey, did I? You're more of a mutt, aren't you?"

"Hey, if intimate feelings are being reciprocated here, I don't want to hear the nickname "Mutt," hard-ass."

Behind steepled fingers, Kaiba looked amused.

"From the one saying "Hard Ass."

"You started it."

"True."

They sat in an amused silence for a few moments. Kaiba looking cold, superior, and aloof, and Jonouchi looking unamused and more than slightly uncomfortable.

"So, questions," Kaiba was all business again. "I want to know about you. Where you came from, how old you are, and what you are doing here, specifically."

Well, Jonouchi would be damned if he let Kaiba ask the only questions.

"You first. You're mister supremely aged vampire, right? I want to know about you."

A pale hand started to twitch nervously. The papers were in Kaiba's hand again, shaking. They were torn in places where hard nails were scraping rents and pulping the resume.

He put the papers down, standing up quickly and walking over to a small wooden cabinet up above a bookshelf.

_One might store cognac there,_ Jonouchi thought as he watched.

"I didn't know you could drink," He spoke up as Kaiba opened the cabinet.

"I-I'm far beyond legal age."

Kaiba never stuttered. Not from what he'd seen. Something was wrong with him.

He pulled out a vial of blue liquid. It looked like highly viscous antifreeze. It shook violently in it's bottle as he brought it ip to eye level, fidgeting and scrambling to get it uncorked. Jonouchi stood up and walked over, taking the bottle from Kaiba and uncorking it, cautiously handing it back to him.

"Are you okay?"

The liquid was gulped down. There was about sixteen ounces of it, all in a slim vial. In an instant, it was gone.

The shaking stopped. A long breath was exhumed, and Jonouchi could swear that he saw a small flash of pure white, pointed bone and enamel slowly retreat into pink gums.

The vial was replaced. Suddenly, Kaiba was all business again.

"What was that," Jonouchi watched him replace the bottle.

"Nothing to concern yourself with."

The cabinet closed.

"Now, questions. You still need to answer them."

Jonouchi smiled at that.

"You first."

They moved back to the chairs.

"Alright, then. I'm originally from Egypt,"

"Then you'd be tan, right? Not overly pale."

Kaiba shot a glare at him.

"Don't interrupt. Skin pales over time; it takes a while for melanin in the skin to die, but it still does."

"Alright. So, you're Egyptian. How long have you been alive?"

"I thought I told you not to interrupt. I've been around a little over two thousand years. I've had a significantly small impact on history."

"How'd you get over to Japan then?"

"Around World War two, I was in Germany. Hitler got elected and then given the political post of supreme chancellor. I saw what was coming after a few months, so, naturally, I fled. I stayed in Russia for a time. There were still exceedingly strong shockwaves after the 1917 revolution, but parts of the country were overly xenophobic. Too much so for my tastes. After a small while there, I decided to leave. Stalin and his regime were getting to be as cruel as Hitler's- the Gulag was more or lest on par with Aushwitz and Dauchau and all the other death camps. I may be a vampire, but I still can't stomach the idea of mass deaths and fascism. So I opted out, fled down to China, and sailed over to America. I spent all of World War two there and then moved over to Japan."

"Okay... What are you doing here?"

"It's a... complicated matter. Mainly due to the culture, no other reason. The places in America where I lived were a bit to... much for my tastes. So, I moved. I got recruited by the former owner of KaibaCorp after a while, and here I am."

A slow nod.

"Now what about you?"

The blonde snapped his head back.

"What...? Me?"

"I'm not asking the vampire pope, am I? Answer _my_ questions now. There's a fair trade, right?"

"Okay, okay- I- I know I'm sixteen. Or something like that. I don't know how long I've been like," He motioned to himself, "This. I think I'm from... Brooklyn... And I don't know... how... I got over... here. Or how long I've been here."

Jonouchi's eyes had gotten glazed over and unfocused. They were flitting back and forth nervously, sometimes landing on him, other times at random parts of the room.

"So you have no concept of time."

"Hm! No- not for as long as I've... as I've been here..."

"You don't know what you're doing here?"

"No... nobody told me. I'm just... Here."

"Do you remember anything?"

"Anything from what?"

"When you were human. How you were created. Anything like that."

The blond shook his head again.

"No. Nothing. But sometimes, I get...I don't know, flashes, I'd guess you call them."

Kaiba felt like a psychologist now. He wished he had a recorder or something hidden in a desk. He glanced at the security camera hidden in the corner. That worked, too. Normally he wouldn't have a camera in one of his private rooms, but he _did_ have a safe here, and he _did_ complete a lot of business transactions here.

He was brought out of his thoughts by jonouchi speaking up to him again.

"They're weird... it's all domestic, y'know... just... flashes of an ordinary life. Someone's life. And there's alway a word... just _one word_ to go with them... But I don't know what it is... It's just... there."

Kaiba brought a hand up to his mouth, his brow furrowing in thought.

"Relapses," He finally said, getting up. "Normally, you wouldn't have them. You would remember everything. Something, I don't know what, has obviously interfered and messed with your brain."

He walked around the desk, motioning for Jonouchi to follow him.

"Where're we going," He asked, following cautiously. They went out of the study, down the hall and the staircase, and up to the front door. Kaiba turned too Roland, whom Jonouchi had just noticed was there, sticking to the shadows.

"I'm going to the office. Have dinner ready for Mokuba when he gets home from his friend's and if anyone calls, tell them I'm unavailable and reschedule. I'll be back in a few hours."

The little man simply bowed and handed him a set of keys.

Kaiba swept out the front door, Jonouchi following at his heels, walking towards the drive way. There was a sleek, black, economical-looking car sitting in it. Walking around to the drivers side, he promptly unlocked the car and motioned for Jonouchi to get in with him. He did.

"Where are we going? KaibaCorp?"

"Where else? There's someone there I want you to meet."

Pulling out of the driveway, they sped down the road. Jonouchi hastily scrambled to put his seatbelt on.

"Kaiba?"

"Hm."

The car took a sharp turn.

"Can I ask something?"

"Depends."

A stoplight. Long, pale fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel.

"If... uh... well, I like you and you... like me, then, um..."

The light turned green.

"You're really awkward with relationships, huh," Kaiba smirked.

"You were either going to say go out or calling each other by our first names."

"Can you read _minds_!"

Kaiba laughed a bit. The sky outside was starting to get dark.

"You're just easy to read. If you want to call me by my first name, that's fine. I don't much care about cultural customs in the way of names. As far as going out, why don't we stay in, if anything."

"Um... okay. Alright, that sounds- _**Oh my GOD are you trying to kill us!**_**"**

The car had just zipped in front of an eighteen-wheeler, almost getting ran over by it. The horn was blaring loudly and he could hear the driver's cusses. His ears were ringing loudly as they progressed down the street. He could see the building in the veritable background- it was as imposing from five blocks away as it was from five feet. They made a few turns, cutting off some more people before sliding into a reserved space in the adjacent parking garage.

"Come on."

They headed inside, blowing past the glass doors and through the post-modernist lobby to the elevator by it, heading down when Kaiba pressed the bottom button twice. Lights flickered a bit and the elevator got a little jerky for a few seconds. Jonouchi grabbed Kaiba's arm, silently praying to whatever god that was out there the elevator wasn't going to break down. He wasn't a big fan of elevators.

The rest of the ride went very smoothly; the doors dinged open at the end, dropping them off in an epoxy-glossed hallway.

Kaiba put a hand on his shoulder, making the blonde loot at him.

"I want you to understand, perfectly, flawlessly, here and now, that I am trusting you with something incredible here. You can not tell _anyone_ about this. I don't care if it's your mother-"

_Mother... That was the word!_

"You have to keep this to yourself. Understand?"

"O-okay. Keep it a secret. An 'If I tell you, I hve to kill you' thing. Yessir."

Kaiba's eyes were colder than ice and clearer than glass when he replied.

"You had better keep it a secret. or I _will_ kill you."

Ice eyes.

_Kaiba could give a man a mile away frostbite_, was Jonouchi's thought as they went through the hallway.

It twisted and turned until they cane to a door. It looked like steel, shiny and impervious and new, standing at perfect attention. Waiting silently. Next to it was a keypad and card slider. Below that, there was a small tub of a fluctuating metallic substance, as well as a small scanner-bar above it.

The doors reflected their images perfectly. Every perfection and imperfection was bounced back at them, their movements matched.

"I thought vampires did't have reflections," Jonouchi muttered off-handedly as he reached out to touch the metal. He honestly hadn't seen anything like it- it was so shiny, so bright, and it looked so _smooth_...

A pale hand slid out and caught his hand when it was just millimeters away from it.

He whimpered at the thought of being denied the action of touching the lustrous metal.

"I wouldn't."

Kaiba pulled out his hand from the metal, looking into the scanner and repeating a sentence before the crackling, buzzing, fizzing sound stopped. Jonouchi wasn't even aware that there _was_ such a sound. It was coming from the door, apparently. A hissing sound filled the air as something slid back and 'thump'ed into place. The images rippled and disappeared as the doors slid back and revealed what was obviously a lab.

"What is this...?"

Kaiba walked into the room, heading towards a table where a hunched over, quivering mass was piled. Upon closer inspection, the mass was a human. Flyaway, disheveled white hair stuck up every which way, and a shiny, metallic black hand held a pen and scribbled equations and words all over a brown-ish paper.

"Rotwang."

The man continued to write.

"Rotwang."

There was muttering now. Jonouchi heard the words _'Frederson' Hel' 'Creation' _and _'Will kill him'._

He hadn't seen the man's face, didn't know anything about him, and he was terrified just by the _feel_ of the air around the man. It was menacing; utterly cold and terrifying- anger fathoming a depth of temperature at the very _least_ a few hundred degrees below zero.

_"Rotwang!"_

Kaiba, obviously, was not. He reached out and grabbed the mans shoulder, spinning him around to face them.

At first, Jonouchi thought the man was a vampire himself. He was sure of it. His face was a pale, paper-white, stretched over sharp, strong features that leaned slightly to the right of his face. Dark circles were under his eyes, obviously put there by a countless number of sleepless nights heaped together. His eyes were a cold blue. They looked long-dead. His mouth was stretched in a frown and his shoulders were tense. He felt _cold_ and _dead_. But not a vampire.

"_Was wünschen Sie?_ What is it now!"

His voice was as cold as the air, sounding bitter and three times as bitter and poison as a cesspool.

In was spattered along the paper, dripping from. an old-fashioned ink pen.

"What the hell do you want?"

Jonouchi was taken aback by the hostility. ot even three sentences and he felt his insides twisting nervously.

"Where's-"

"Franz? _That _is what you interrupt me for! _Franz!_ It's your damn complex, Kaiba! Your own _damn_ complex!"

The man jumped up.

"Stop throwing a fit. Just tell me where he is."

The man- Rotwang- Stalked over to another table, flipping on a buzzing mercury light. A schematic was pulled out from a drawer underneath it. Soft, buttery-looking, shaped copper-plates were laid out in the shape of a person on the table, chips and wires piled under them with wires and tubes connecting parts of them.

"He's somewhere around here."

The mechanical hand waved them absentmindedly away.

"Go find him, if you need to speak to him so quickly."

Kaiba nodded, turning and walking off.

"Come on, Katsuya."

Jonouchi bolted at the name. Katsuya. That was the first time that Kaiba had called him that. Katsuya.

"Sure thing, Seto."

And he followed him.

The place was a damn maze. One turn here, two turns there, two rights made a left.

"Hey, Seto...?"

"Yes?"

"Is Rotwang a vampire?"

Kaiba stopped for a second, before laughing. It wasn't a long, loud or hearty laugh as it was short.

"No. Not by any means."

"What is he, then?"

"Something of a living mummy-"

"He's a zombie!"

"Wrong term, then. He's a walking embalmed corpse. I developed the method- it's costly, it's troublesome, and it's not only annoying but exceedingly painful. If you're willing to deal with all of that, it keeps you alive. You don't need to eat or drink or anything like that. And your brain and body are preserved for countless lifetimes."

The eventually came to a door. Voices were coming from behind it. These were different- They were honeyed- warm and sweet. They were lover's voices. He heard moans and begging, cloth scraping together and bodies rubbing up against each other in such a tender way- He was utterly hypnotized by the sound of it.

Until Kaiba knocked on the door, his face utterly cold and unamused.

The noises ceased before hushed whispers sounded off.

_"Erich- Erich, stop... H-anh!"_

_"Why- you were begging for it just a few seconds ago."_

_" P-people! Other people - out there! Let me up, I- unh!"_

_"Hhhh... very well; go on and answer it."_

"Wh- who is it!"

"Who else would it be, Franz?"

"_Kaiba!_ God damn- H-hold on! I'll be out in a minute!"

There was a loud scrambling noise. Something fell with a heavy _'thud' _and there was a discontented sound.

"_Get some damn clothes on!_"

"_Why? Because of Kaiba?"_

"_Yes! Yes, you idiot, because of Kaiba! Hurry up!_"

Nothing moved for a moment.

"_Fine, stay there! Just keep the sheets on or something!"_

The door slid open not a moment later. There stood another man, about as tall as him, who was jus as pale and just as cold-feeling at Rotwang.

His light blonde hair was disheveled, and he looked as if he would be sweating and blushing. Clothes were thrown loosely onto him, and he was still buttoning his shirt. He had light, crystal blue eyes. They were magnified a bit by a tilted pair of red, rectangular glasses. There was a wild, unsatisfied lust in them.

"_J-ja, Herr Kaiba_, what is it?"

His voice was hurried. He sounded breathless. Judging by the man sitting naked- very naked- in the bed behind him, he had a good reason to be.

Jonouchi wanted to blush.

"I need you to do some blood tests and an examination, Franz."

A brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, and corners of a mouth were pulled down.

" On who?"

Kaiba motioned to Jonouchi, who just waved shyly and said 'hi there' while looking and feeling awkward and out of place in general.

"_Now!_"

"Yes, now. Here, now."

"Hhhh- alright. Alright, bring him through here."

The man laying on the bed lit up a cigarette and waved, the lighter in his hand.

"In here."

Franz led them into a walled off room with a curtain to one side.

"Does everyone who needs a physical have to go through here?"

"You mean the bedroom? No. This is just room that happened to be connected. It's a back up way in, per se."

"Come on, you," Franz's hand was tight on his upper arm. "Over here."

Jonouchi stood nervously by the curtain.

"Strip down."

"_What!_"

"You heard me, strip down. Your shirt, pants, underwear, socks, everything. Strip. Now. You can use the curtain for some privacy or not. When you're done, go stand over by that scale- clothes weigh more than people give them credit for, and we need an absolute weight," Franz motioned towards the corner of the room, "And we'll get started."

He headed off to get a clip board and form, leaving Kaiba and Jonouchi to themselves.

Kaiba was watching him.

"What?"

_"_You were going to-"

"If you want a show, go somewhere else! You pervert."

"Whatever happened to 'reciprocate feelings'?"

"So I can't do that and see you strip?"

"_Hfff_- Fine. _Fine_. Watch if you want."

Jonouchi promptly proceeded to take off his shirt, sliding it over his head. His hand went to the button of his pants and-

"How long does it take you to get undressed? Good lord, you're damn slow. Hurry up."

Franz hit him with a pen.

Jonouchi quickly pulled off the rest of his clothes and stood there, as naked as the day he was born and even more awkward.

"I didn't think that you had to undress to do an examination," The blonde mused out loud.

"You don't. I was a doctor at Aushwitz. This is just the way we did things there."

"You were at _Aushwitz_! You're a Nazi! He's a- Did you know about this! Why do you have a Nazi as your doctor! You're damn psychotic!"

Jonouchi looked back and forth between Kaiba and Franz.

"Yes, I did. He was a nazi. That doesn't mean he's a bad doctor. Just let him to the exam."

This was suddenly a great deal more uncomfortable than Jonouchi would have cared to admit.

"Step on the scale- we need exact weight and height."

Jonouchi obeyed.

"Stand up straight. Your posture is atrocious. Throw your shoulders back, keep your spine straight. Try your best to keep your shoulders square and your weight evenly distributed."

He still stood slightly hunched over, holding his arms over his chest at his elbows.

Franz looked over his glasses at him.

"What? You're embarrassed? Look, just stand up straight and put your back against the wall when I tell you and we'll get to move on to the next part of the physical. Hurry up- there's no need to feel inadequate."

"Wha- That is _not _why!"

"Then there should be no problem. C'mon, I don't have all day. Stop being a child and hurry up."

Grudgingly, Jonouchi did as he was told.

Franz quickly measured him, writing measurements on the paper.

"Weight is 170, height is five foot nine inches. Hair is blonde, eyes are brown, race is Caucasian. Alright, you're perfectly normal so far. Step down, walk over here."

Franz led Jonouchi over to an examination table. Kaiba promptly followed.

Tapping the seat for Jonouchi to sit, he opened a cabinet built into the lower part of the table.

"I'm going to check your hearing, your eyesight, and your reflexes. Kaiba's going to help with that-" Franz shot a look out of the corner of his eyes at Kaiba and smirked a bit. "Shouldn't take a moment. Now, I want you to put these on," A pair of red headphones," And tell me if you hear a sound and which ear you hear a sound in. Just raise the hand corresponding with the ear. I'm going to start the machine now. Ready?"

Jonouchi nodded.

"Okay."

A switch was flipped on a small box the headphones were connected with. A clear ringing sound went through his left ear. He raised his left hand. A note on the paper.

Another switch, another beep, another hand raised.

The ringing got progressively louder or softer, and Jonouchi's head was starting to ache in it's lower back. Finally, the noise stopped.

"Alright. Hearing's normal. Take the scoop," The headphones were put away and a spoon-like thing was handed to him.

"Hold it over your left eye, tell me what you see, and then try your other eye."

The tests progressed relatively quickly after that. Jonouchi didn't have much of a problem with it, not until Franz pulled Kaiba aside.

He heard the words 'blood test, cancers,' and, he was somewhat sure the phrase 'std' was in there somewhere.

"The entire battery," was Kaiba's reply.

Franz walked back up.

"I'm assuming that, since Kaiba brought you here, you aren't exactly human. You don't exhibit the characteristics of a lycanthrope or a zombie so I'm assuming vampire."

"Y-yeah..."

"When it comes to vampires, the immune system and such don't function like those of a living being. As well as the process of ridding the body of waste. You don't produce urine or material waste if your body doesn't use part of what you consume. So, the waste is either thrown up, excised, or neutralized by being absorbed into cells. The brilliant thing about cell absorption is that the cells that absorb the waste are in the dermis and epidermis- your skin- and die and shed just as soon as they've absorbed all the waste they can. And when you're talking about millions of cells all over your body, there's a large capacity to absorb waste. Or it all congeals together into nastily colored snot."

Jonouchi looked on nervously as Franz pulled out a pair of latex gloves, a swab and length of elastic ribbon, some vials with a cloudy, congealed substance in them, and a bag along with a large needle.

"I'm sure you're not allergic to latex," he said, pulling the gloves on.

"All that we're doing here is s simple blood test- I stick you with a needle, draw a sample, test it, and report what I find. We're looking for blood and DNA composition, as well as any indications of diseases or cancers."

"Why do you need to know all this? What sicknesses could vampires even get? Why would it matter?"

He was feeling more and more nervous by the second. He rubbed his legs together a bit, pressing them together at the knees.

"Because even though most human functions aren't needed any more, there is still the subconscious urge for the body to produce white blood cells and for things like cancers to occur. Vampirism is just a complicated super virus. It evolves and combines. or reacts with other viruses, sicknesses, or bacteria to create something new, even down to the infected subject's DNA. It changes the four DNA bases, so there's more components than adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, and your DNA isn't simply deoxyribose nucleic acid anymore. Your body has the probability of evolving or completely breaking down at the sign of any abnormalities. We need to test and keep a record so we know what's going on with you and use you as a guinea pig if need be. Obviously, most doctor's don't get a chance to conduct examinations on a species that supposedly doesn't exist."

"How do you know that a vampire's immune system doesn't just destroy a virus automatically?"

"We don't."

"I really don't like this."

"You really don't have to. And I really don't care. So, you get blood samples drawn."

Franz grabbed the needle. Tying an elastic strip around Jonouchi's arm, he wiped it with alcohol and poked it methodically to find a vein. Wasting no time, he inserted the needle in the pale flesh, stopping when it hit the vein to connect it with the small empty vial that had a sort of opaque gel in it.

Black blood gelled out-sluggishly at first, opaque and sticky, before roiling out and filling the vial. Gently removing it one it was full, Franz replaced it with another. The process repeated after that until four or five vials were full. The needle was pulled out and a band-aid placed on the pinhole.

"I'll test these and fax you the results when it's done. Until then, get out. I'm tired and my patience is wearing to damn this to deal with the rest of this. Bring him back if any other tests need to be done."

The gloves were torn off in a menacing ' snap' and thrown away. The swab was set by a table of equipment and Franz walked out and flopped down on his bed. Jonouchi quickly got dressed and walked out, pulling Kaiba behind him.

They ducked out of the room quickly, walking down the hallway and through the main lab. Rotwang was gone. The coppery metal was still there on the table, but pulled together at the midsection now. It was clearly human, a slim imitation of a girl. Slim, with a tapered waist. Jonouchi noticed that there was a mound of circuitry and computer chips where a head would be. Beside it lay a metal skeleton, shining silvery light off of it. Wires connected parts of each respective structure. In between the two, rudimentary hands were stretched out, almost toughing. They wanted to be together- A body and it's skeleton. It chilled him to the bone.

They were out of the lab before he could get a good look at anything else.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Franz lay next to Erich, suddenly tired beyond comparison. He frowned as He felt his shirt buttons being undone.

"Stop it, Erich."

He was pulled over to lay on top of the other, his head lolling off to the side, his face buried in the other's neck. His glasses slipped off his face. Lazily, Franz took them and placed them on the bed side.

Hands ran lovingly up and down his back, sliding his shirt down below his shoulders.

"You're okay?"

Oh, Erich. Erich was always there, always comforting at the end of any hardship. Something felt odd this time, though, off, ever since he had mysteriously shown up again. It was weird. It was unsettling. But it was comforting at the same time. He felt safe and warm as he lay there, his eyelids drooping. His hands rested above Erich's arms, folded, one gripping his shoulder and one the sheet. It felt stiff and sticky. If he could blush, he would have. What they did earlier- ah, god. He exhaled slowly, curling into Erich's body.

"Are you okay? You seem... distressed."

"Mhh... I'm exhausted. I want to sleep. So you had better let me., or suffer my wrath."

"'Suffer my wrath'?" Erich laughed. "I think Rotwang's need for vengeance is starting to rub off on you."

"Hah! That'll be the day."

They stayed in silence for a few moments before Erich finally broke it.

"Franz?"

"Mph- yes? What is it?"

"It's the in-"

"Don't say information," Franz groaned.

"If you don't want to talk about it-"

"I don't think I can get it. I would need access to files that require higher clearance than what I have. Kaiba doesn't give information away to just anyone. In any way."

Erich's hand went up to sift trough his hair, stroking his skull. The hand around his waist tightened, not uncomfortably, holding them together.

"Take your time. If you can't get it, it's okay, just take your time."

Franz nodded, leaning into the side of Erich's neck. The warmth from the blanket, the comfort of another body... He couldn't believe it all was back. Beside him, Erich moved to bury his nose in his hair, smiling.

**[Ende ch. 11]**

Mmkay, I went back and edited this, because, on second thought- I probably shouldn't have written the screwy mess that was here before.

So, some explanations of the medical thing- And please, keep in mind that I learned all this LAST YEAR in Biology 1, so I'm a little rusty-

DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid- this is what defines us as, well, human. It's made up of four bases- Adenine, Cytosine, Thyme, and Guanine, that go in different sequences to determine what traits can come out of a strand of DNA. For example-

ACGTCTGACTGTS

Would be a random, screwy, but valid sequence in a strand of DNA.

Basically, I think that if vampirism or hemovorism or whatever you wanted to call it actually existed, it would be passable as a highly contagious strand of super-virus that altered DNA sequences. By highly contagious, I mean if you get bit, about 99% of the time, it gets you. Like small pox to Indians way back in the day.

This is a partial attempt to explain something that is supernatural and is more or less supposed to be beyond the realm of scientific thought or explanation, and also to reflect growing anxieties about evolving super-viruses- check the news, kiddies, it's there.

So, yea, never say you didn't learn anything from me!


	12. Aufsteigen

So, Well, yeah, say my name three times and I'm back just as quickly as I left y'all~! (But no, I'm not Betelgeuse)

Well, yeah, after the whole std medical thing, I'm going to write something a bit more... atypical, I guess. P:

I've been watching "Repo" scenes on youtube- Mainly the "Zydrate Anatomy" one, and then I thought- Zydrate- Little blue bottle. Kaiba's medicine stuff- little blue bottle. Probably fluorescent like the zydrate bottle is. So... Kaiba's medicine = Zydrate? Ahmigod. I formed the whole idea before I even knew Repo existed, really, which kinds proves my personally hated hypothesis that _it's ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE._ Urf. Except Zydrate isn't what _I'm_ talking about. P:

So, yeah, Repo's some pretty trippy shit that I have correlating ideas with- or vice versa. frachiz.

Paris Hilton and her catty voice need to STFU. Badly. P:

Here's that KaibaJou pg-13 smut I've been promising y'all. :3

**I WON NOTHING. Kthzbye. Plox.**

"Aufsteigen" is 'ascent' in German.

**[Aufsteigen]**

_ On the corner of a street stood a child. There were no buildings, no trees. only a grid of pavement sitting atop an endless expanse of asphalt. Old-fashioned lamp posts stood at a stiff attention on every corner. The scene stretched on for miles, without a soul in sight. The child looked around, blond hair swinging in and out of its view line. The sky was a mix of sepias, blacks, and blues, with clouds running hurriedly across it. _

_ Where was its mother?_

_ Where was its father?_

_ Where was its sister?_

_ Where was its family?_

_ A female voice sounded off to a side, calling incoherent words. The child looked over to see a woman, a __**mother**__, standing off on a corner a few sections away. A man stood with her, and a little girl. They all held hands. There was a shadow behind them. _

_ The mother called out to him again, beckoned him. The child stood on the corner, looking at them, wanting to go to them. His feet moved heavily, weighing as much as lead, insurmountable amounts of gold, even. He willed and willed and willed, tugged and pulled- it felt as if he ad run a mile- but he hadn't even gone but a few inches from his spot. He tried again. This time, the moving came easier. He was on the street now, stopping in the middle of it, the effort was still so great. He moved again. Little by little, each time, it became easier to move. He was almost to their corner now- he could see the details of the people clearly. He could see everything- everything but their faces. What he thought was a shadow was actually another child. The same size as the little girl, but with fine blonde hair. As he got closer, the figure turned. The child's skin was pale and smooth, its mouth a perfect smile- all flawless shades of white and pale pink. The child eyes were closed, with dark smudges of black, lashes, to mark where its eyes were. The hands were so small and perfect, like a china doll's. As the child got closer, the other one grew. Older and older and older until it was a teenager. And when he got closer, he could see that what he thought was perfect wasn't so perfect after all. The white skin was waxy, stretched tightly across a bony frame. The boys lips were pulled back over squarely shaped teeth, which looked white at first, but were now stained with a pale, yellowing red. The incisors were sharp, pointed- to much so to be normal. An apprehensive ball of fear formed in the child's stomach. The hands at the boys side were long and bony, spiderwebbed with a pattern of off-colored veins. The nails were old-looking and dyed a light red. The boys hair was tangled and coarse, and his eyes- the lashes were layered over grey-toned skin, circles. As the eyes opened, the child got scared- they were red. Blood red and lustrous, like gemstones. The gleamed. The sclera was yellow, and there wasn't any dark line dividing it and the iris. Ir faded from yellow to orange to re, just like that. And they seemed to _fluctuate_- Looking everywhere at once, seeing everything at once. They saw him- they observed him, dissected him-_

_ Two bodies were twined together in an impossibly cushy bed- warm and slick and soft against each other. Hands moved and grasped needfully, holding and touching and fondling lovingly. Lips met sweaty skin, a tongue darted out to lick the pale expanse beneath it. Katsuya arched up beneath Seto, pushing up farther against him, trying to get closer than the impossible closeness that was already there. He shuddered as a hand reached down, sliding behind him. He gasped, jerking his head to the side. Where he had bee dying to go up, drive himself closer to the man above him, he was dying to get down closer now. There was a delicious heat- a tightness. He groaned, writhing and undulating, holding onto Seto's shoulders, sliding his hands down the pale, expansive back. Kaiba's mouth moved across his collar bone, opening, sliding down to the junction where it met his shoulders. He felt a slight pressure, a sting, before he felt his skin split open and and blood welling up. He moaned, pushing Seto closer, panting and gasping. He could hear the blood coursing through his veins, welling up through his arteries. Louder and louder, until it was a roar. It continued to grow and grow, until-_

The alarm clock went off next to his bed. It's shrill blaring made his eyes snap open. They had gotten redder over the past few months. He slammed his hand down on the 'snooze' button, letting out a large amount of pent-up air. He felt uncomfortable as he sat up. It was an obvious problem- that dream. Oh, that dream. He reveled in the imaginary sensations, wishing, wanting them to be real... It had been months since it had become obvious that he like Seto. It had been a few weeks since Seto said he had liked him. This had quickly become evident shortly after the physical... he didn't want to remember that. It was to uncomfortable a memory. His mind was quickly turned to other things, though. They were close. At least, he hoped they would be. The feelings that welled up in him made him squirm. He shifted and the... problem...between his legs just wouldn't leave him alone. This would be a long, hard morning. He moved to deal with it, hoping this wouldn't happen again this week. The dreams he could handle. The physical side effects, however, he couldn't. Not at seven am.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

Kaiba hadn't slept all night- hardly surprising, as he was nocturnal. But if he was taking the medicine Franz made for him, he should be acting like a human. His behavior patters, his sleep patterns, should all be normal. This wasn't... what was supposed to happen. He was jittery, he was incoherent, half of the time. It had been a few weeks since he had started to slip that one time, when Jonouchi was talking. Jonouchi... Katsuya. He definitely had energy. Kaiba had to admit that. He was constantly running all over the place, dragging him one place or another... this one time he practically jumped him after school, opening his shirt and _where in the name of God is that stupid VIAL! _He had one here not ten _seconds_ ago! He ran his tongue over his teeth. His inscicors were an unusual one fourth of an inch- just the distance of the jugular below the skin. He was slipping more and more over the past few months- His want- his need- no, it was absolute _lust_. It was absolutely outrageous. There was never a problem with it all like _this_... he even considered drinking Katsuya's much as he loved Katsuya, as attracted as he was to him, his blood nauseated him. The black, gluey goo... it looked like a toxin. It probably _was_ a toxin. A blood toxin... blood... _Damn where is that vial! _Something off in the distance crashed and shattered against the floor. He didn't much care. Turning around, his bare feet trampled along the hard wood floor of his room steadily, quickly, until they hit the residue of whatever had broke. His feet landed on sharp glass, the shards digging into his feet, slicing through them as he slipped and fell on his bum.

He looked to see what he had slipped in.

"Oh,_ shit... Mother Fucker!_"

What had smashed was a little blue vial. Phosphorescent blue liquid, the exact color of antifreeze, spread out over the floor. It seeped into his pants legs.

That was the last vial of the damn stuff that that he had. He couldn't go so long without the medicine- the stretches of time in between taking doses of it were starting to get unbearable. He was close to digging his eyes out at how incredibly annoying, how incredibly and unbearably ridiculous, how out- of- hand... he was a drug addict now. Pathetic without the medicine he wanted... _needed_, now. He had no medicine, no way to go walk outside... It was somewhat fortunate- The school was closed due to a suspiciously impromptu ice storm.

Kaiba remembered Katsuya suddenly. He was coming over later, to see him. There had been four more murders in the past few months. All following the patterns of the violent ones before. He was sure Katsuya was behind them. He was sleeping with- infatuated, in love, whatever you want to call it- with a murderer. Not that he had a perfect record himself. But still- Katsuya was the proof. Leda wouldn't do anything- she hadn't done anything. She had a mountain of proof in front of her- she acknowledged it- but she was still right. They hadn't hear anything, not a word of proof out of Katsuya's mouth- that was the key. Katsuya was the key. He needed to tell them something- _anything_- about the mausoleum. About Sadie. Or the scientist creating the fakes. There were more of them, too. On every street corner now.

But Leda was right- without cold, hard evidence, every angle covered (Which, in Kaiba's mind, it was), the Organization wouldn't stand behind them. They had to have the words right out of the horse's mouth to move. And he _would_ make it happen.

In the corner, on a desk by the bookshelf, his fax machine went off and spat out sheets of paper.

He grabbed up the sheets and started reading.

_"Physical Results"_

Scanning over that sheet, the results of all the tests were negative. He was normal. Health-wise, at least.

_"Blood Tests_

_Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine are mixed into blood. Unknown genetic base is now present. _

_Identification Pending further testing. _

_Plasma is nearly absent from blood. _

_Red Blood Cells have congealed. _

_White cell count has plummeted significantly._

_Mass amounts of Toxins are built up in the blood stream. _

_Organic Nanites and Transistor Metal Threads Present._

_No noticeable immune system."_

The white cell count didn't sound right... He filed away the original analysis somewhere. The pain in his foot and mess on the floor momentarily forgotten, he shakily tore through his files, eventually pulling out a sheet dated for a few days ago. Scanning down the page, he spotted it-

_"White Blood-cell count abnormally high."_

In about a week or so, his white cell count had totally reversed. And there wasn't anything there to make up for it.

_Of course there wouldn't be, you idiot! He's a fake! _

Normally, if someone was infected with the virus that produced vampirism, certain parts of their systems dies away. Harmful bacteria, toxins, everything except certain compounds and acids were expelled. White cells and other immunizing compounds were still there, strengthened, even, by the virus. Since Katsuya was more or less a glorified mad science experiment, there was nothing there to make up for anything that would wipe out his immune system and kill him.

He was becoming a walking Hazmat container. Good Lord.

He slammed the papers down, biting his lower lip. It was getting worse now. The pain in his foot was starting to become increasingly acute again, driving nails into his heels. He sat down in the office chair behind him, pulling his feet up, checking them for glass. Large shards were stuck into his hells and the balls of his feet. He could pull them out, they were no problem. It was the tiny little shards in there that he was worries about. Taking a deep breath, he looked down at his feet.

Damn, this would hurt.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

The location had changed. Bertrand moved through the room of the church, looking in contempt at the relics and pews and windows. He detested religion. Unfounded beliefs in ridiculous beings. Religion was an ugly thing. No basis, no reality- it sowed seeds of discourse and started needless wars-

"It is funny you should think that, Bertrand, as you serve me. As you are starting a war. As you are fighting one. Funny thoughts for one who does what he hates, no?"

He looked over to the confessional to see a nun bowed in prayer. Obviously not a nun now. The black hood of the habit obscured the figure's profile. He moved to stand behind her, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed.

"Do you look upon me as a god, Bertrand," She asked as she stood up, still facing forward. "Do you look upon me as a higher being?"

He remained silent.

"Speak, Bertrand. I will not judge you harshly. You have served me loyally, lovingly; unquestioningly, even, and you have more than earned the right to speak your mind to me without my judgement or admonishment."

His mouth tightened at the edged for a moment.

"You... you are the perfect leader. You are the light to lead the new world that will be created- how could anyone look upon you and not see a higher being? Being acknowledged as such is intelligence, cunning, skill... to be a higher being, a supreme being, even, one does not need to be a god. One just needs to be-"

"Above average? If that was all it took, Bertrand, then anyone could be a god. Still, you thoughts merit compliment. It is, without a doubt, an idea with strength. Still, your compliments of perfection flatter me. But! We have more pressing matters to attend to. Have you gotten the information, Bertrand? Has Erich returned successful?"

The scientist squirmed a bit.

"Not as yet. What you have asked for- it's not anything Franz will be able to get to on the KaibaCorp mainframe. I highly doubt Kaiba would keep records o the members of Paladin on his hard drive, even if it was protected by a completely independent eternity code."

The silence after this confession was what Bertrand had feared. His leader's... his _goddess'_, dare he use the vile term, calm. Her pensive anger.

"What about Kaiba himself?"

"Kaiba...?"

"Yes, Kaiba, Bertrand! The man whom Sadie says will eventually undermine us!"

"Even Sadie, being the former Maglightum, can't tell-"

"Maglightum _and_ a magician with a power to match an Asguardian! _Use_ the talents at your disposal, Bertrand! _You_ operated on her, _you_ planted these ides in her head! _Your_ technology made her ours! Our tool to use! And many others! You have nearly limitless resources, ones which cannot be wasted! _Focus_, Bertrand!"

She paused. Her voice echoed off the walls, rebounding a billion times stronger than the were until they faded away.

"Use Katsuya. He is close to Seto Kaiba."

"Couldn't we abduct Leda...?"

"Leda is to strong to crack under mental power that would otherwise fry her brain. It's that demon of hers, Hiram. Leda is a formidable force on her own, with the strength to match a god. With Hiram, she is very nearly a Titan. Even without him, she is incomparably strong. Beyond someone of our power at this moment. No, Leda is no good. We need to get the information through Kaiba. He is their weak link. His power stems from his _Ka_; his spirit beast, Duos. But the need for such a thing has fell into disuse in the past millennium. He does not possess a millennium item, anyway- they are long lost. Any strength stemming from his _Ka_ will be long gone by now. Kaiba's mind will crack easily under Sadie's power. Use Katsuya to get to him. Abduct him, get the information, inject him with an amnesia virus, and send him home. We'll have our information, and then we'll have our victory. Understand, Bertrand?"

"Of course."

"We prevail."

"We prevail."

Bertrand retreated, silently closing the large double doors as he left.

**[-_-_-_-_-_-]**

There was a knock at his door. Kaiba had just finished bandaging his feet up, yelling at the maid when she dare enquire further what had happened, having the time of his life resisting the urge to rip her throat open and drink her dry.. His feet still stung, not completely healed as he hadn't drunk anything in the past week or so.

The knocking started again, doubly sharp now.

"_Who is it!_"

"Um- Katsuya..."

That's right- he was coming over today. He was here. Kaiba had forgotten.

"Come on in."

He picked up a few pieces of glass, tossing them in his wastebasket.

A rectangle of light hit him, making him cringe as Katsuya opened the door. It quickly vanished.

"Why do you have the lights off?"

Kaiba rubbed his eyes, sitting down on his bed.

"Tired. Just tired. No real reason to, anyways."

Katsuya climbed up behind him, pulling him down on his lap.

"You alright?"

Pale hands went through chestnut colored hair. Looking up at Katsuya's face, he noticed how pale he was. He stood out starkly against the darkness of the room. He noticed that where his eyes had been amber when he first saw him, they were more red now. The sclera was tinged yellow, like a smoker's eyes.

_He's a walking Hazmat container_.

His liver was dead. His immune system was dead. His cells were dying. The technology that had created him had also left him completely venerable. And he had no idea. He would simply shut down some time. The thought pulled at Kaiba's conscience.

"Seto? Are. You. All. Right?"

"Yes," He smiled. "I'm fine."

"You don't look it."

Kaiba reached up to scratch Katsuya behind his ear. The blonde pouted.

"What?"

"You're scratching behind my ear."

"Yes."

"Like I'm a dog."

"Indeed I am."

"Seto?"

"Yes?"

"I will bite you."

Kaiba laughed. Long, pointed incisors showed blatantly.

He saw Katsuya looking at him curiously, one hand moving towards his mouth.

"You haven't fed," The blonde said pointedly.

"Not today."

"Not in the past week, by the looks of you. You look tired."

"I've been up all night."

"What about that stuff-"

"I ran out."

"Couldn't you go get some? Couldn't _I_ go get some? Or have it delivered?"

"It's day- I'm vulnerable. After Erich got in, and I have no idea how," Kaiba frowned. "Nobody but me gets in there. And Franz isn't a doctor that does house calls."

Katsuya shuddered visibly at that.

"I could kill him."

"Good luck," Kaiba rolled over, pulling Katsuya down with him. "He's already dead."

"What about Rotwang? I bet he could kill Franz for me."

"I don't think Rotwang much cares."

Katsuya's arm moved to rest across Kaiba's stomach, his hand fisting in the light fabric of the other's shirt.

"What's his deal, anyway?"

"Rotwang?"

"Yeah. He seems kinda..."

"Off?"

"Yeah. He seems kinda off."

"He's insane."

"No shit, Sherlock. What else do I not know? That he's obviously a mad scientist?"

"I keep him around for programming and weapons. He has not reservations about morals or humanitarianism. He's perfect for constructing WMD's for me."

"You're making _WMD's_!"

"Well, not yet..."

Katsuya hit him playfully on the chest.

"Seriously, though, what's wrong with him?"

Kaiba shrugged.

"I simply don't know."

"And he's working with you?"

"_For_ me. I don't have to know about his background, nor do I have to care. He wants to stay alive for as long as possible. I use that want to convince him to work for me."

"You bribe him with immortality."

"And he gives me weapons."

Katsuya climbed on top of him, laying down on him, his hands crossed under his chin.

"You are an immoral beast, Seto Kaiba."

"You don't much care, though, do you?"

"No," He kissed him. "I don't. I care about you and what you do."

Kaiba smiled.

"And not the mental and emotional effects of whom I associate with?"

"No, because you're already Satan. Rotwang can hardly corrupt you."

"I'm _Satan_? Hardly. I've met Satan. I'm better looking and more amicable."

"Better looking? Yes. But amicable? My _ass_ is more amicable that you."

Kaiba frowned.

"It had better not be. Not to anyone other than myself."

"A machine gun, them."

They would have continued that playful banter had a shadow even darker than the surrounding ones in the room proceeded to hover over them, leaning down...

Kaiba saw it before Katsuya did, And rolled him out of the way.

Surprised, the blonde laid on the bed as Kaiba quickly pulled the bayonet blade out of the drawer in the bedside table. It was pointed at the shadows throat instantly. Katsuya had no idea how that would wound it, though.

Red cracks appeared on it's head where eyes would be, glowing and ominous, chilled deep blue.

_Leda would like to speak with you two. Now. In the Parlor_.

"Why does Leda want to speak with us," Kaiba demanded.

"What the hell is a Parlor," Katsuya asked, confused.

The shadow just gave him a cold look.

_She expects you there in the next minute._

Then it evaporated.

Kaiba replaced the Bayonet and proceeded to storm out of the room, pulling Katsuya behind him.

Out in the hallway, heavy curtains were drawn over all the windows, keeping out harsh sunlight. The bright, eco-friendly Halogens made up for it in harsh brightness, minus the UV rays, of course.

Storming down the stairs (With Katsuya stumbling in his wake), he stomped into the TV room.

"What is it?"

Leda was reclined on a couch, leaning up against Hiram, who had his arm slung around her shoulders. She was sipping a coffee, looking bored.

"_What is it!_"

She looked over, raising her eyebrows.

"Oh. You're here. Both of you. Good," She set the mug down. "Let's get started."

She looked at them, her hands folded across her stomach.

Kaiba stared her down, looking as if he wanted to kill her.

Katsuya knew what he wanted to kill her for.

Hiram probably knew, to.

The man might as well have been made of C4.

"What. Do you. Want."

"Important things must be discussed."

"Like _what_!"

"Sit down."

"Hurry up and spit it out."

Kaiba looked strained. He was tense. He was ready to snap.

That tension permeated the rest of the room.

"Seto-"

"_What?"_

"Sit down."

"_Jonouchi_..."

"_Sit down_, Seto."

Katsuya pushed on his shoulders, backing him towards the other couch.

"Sit down, _please_."

Katsuya sat down, pulling Kaiba with him. He propped his elbows on his knees, leaning forward.

"What is it that you want, Leda?"

"To discuss. With you and your boyfriend."

"Discuss _what_!"

"_Him!_"

Leda pointed at Katsuya, looking up at the celling.

"What about me?"

"What are you?"

"E-excuse me?"

"What _are_ you," Leda swung around, sitting up and placing hr palms on the coffee table. "What are you? Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you!:

"I-I'm a vampire, I guess..."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty darn."

"What backs you up?"

"Um... fangs, drinking blood... resistance to aging, being nocturnal... That kind of stuff, I guess..."

"You guess?"

"Yeah."

"You _guess_? So you're not 100 percent sure?"

"Um... I am 100 percent sure."

"Oh really?"

"Really."

"Okay then. That's all I wanted to know from you. Out."

"Okay..."

"Out! Out out out! Now! Go! Vamoose! Adios! Avituzen! Ciao!"

She stood up and waved him out feverently.

"Um, okay-"

"_Out! Out! Out! Now!_"

"_Okay!_ I'm going, I'm going! Bye, see you later! I'll be outside!"

He left, Seto watching him curiously.

She plopped back down, her hands on her knees, leaning down. Her elbows were out like bizarre wings.

"Now, on to you. We have a problem here, Kaiba."

Her elbows went down to her knees.

"You are becoming a liability."

"Wh-"

"Hey! Let me finnish! You are spinning out of control. What's up?"

"...It's none of your business. It's nothing special."

"Horse shit."

Leda glared at him, looking at him questioningly before pulling her shirt sleeve back and holding out her harm.

"C'mere."

"No."

"Seto Kaiba, I don't care if this means degradation or rape to you, you are weak. You need blood. You can't drink Hiram's, it'll make you not only useless but high. Jonouchi's blood will poison you. You won't drink from Mokuba, he means to much to you. You're out of medicine and you can't go outside. You're going through withdrawal you've been on it so long. And you wouldn't be able to escape public notice if you went out and fed tonight. You wouldn't even make it through the day. So swallow your damn pride and drink. You're utterly useless otherwise."

Walking over to him, she squatted down and held out her arm.

"Drink. Now."

He hesitated before doing so.

Leda gritted her teeth. Well, the books and movies lied. This didn't feel good. It wasn't good in any way. This was needles digging in her arm. Sure, it was only a forth of an inch, but it was like a shark- the teeth weren't long, but jaw strength and the pliance of flesh made it worse than it was. She was feeling lightheaded, too. The room was swaying... and blurry... and twirling...

_"I know you get a lot of strength from me, and I know you're brave, but you don't have to be ridiculously brazen, Leda."_

Pale hands took her arms, pulling them away from the teeth. Dull pain pulsed in her forearm, and she felt sick and lightheaded.

_"Are you okay?"_

"Fmm? Yuh... damn- bashtard..." She looked at her arm. It was smeared with crimson. "Shit..."

"Why did you... do that," Kaiba asked, holding his head in his hands.

_"You're not about to drink her dry. You need to get yourself in control. Now go on back to whatever you were doing. We're done here."_

Seto staggered to his feet. He felt pleasantly dazed.

"Kaiba... Get to the Mausoleum through Jonouchi. Get him to _say it_. Say that he;s one of them. Get a recording... then we'll go from there."

She shuffled out of the room, aided by Hiram.

Kaiba sat on the couch, digging his hands into it. Jonouchi peeked in.

"Seto? Are you-" He noticed the blood smeared across the other's face. "Are you all right?"

**[Ende pt. 12]**

Hmmmmm yeah THIS CHAPTER SUCKS KaiJou kerfuffley canoodling shistuffery reinforcing what's already been done and said and shiz. I'm more than 60% sure that this'll stop spinning it's damn useless wheels pretty freaking soon. ):


	13. Fortschritt

Hmmmm; I got a couple iTunes gift cards for christmas, so I've started watching "Caprica," which is a pretty cool, albeit utter bizarre, show. So I've been effectively 'WTF' ing for the past half hour or so, and then I thought I'd mix some stuff and concepts from "Caprica" with "Fake," so yay! :'D

More out-of-nowhere sci-fi shistuffery! :D

_Also... I know ch. 11 is total shit, but ignore it if you want. In all honesty, it's just me being a smart ass. It really has no intrinsic value to the story. P:_

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. NADA. Not. One. Bit. Of any pre-existing material here. Nor am I making money off of it. Plox for not suing, guys! :)**

**[Fortschritt]**

**[Progress]**

Jonouchi was sitting by Seto's bed, in his room, looking around somewhat nervously. Leda had stumbled out of the TV room, her blood half coagulated, helped by Hiram. He went to find Seto and saw him sitting on the couch, looking dazed.

He asked if he was okay, helped him up, before being shrugged off as Seto walked hurriedly up the staircase to his room, heading to his bathroom.

"I'm going to clean up, wait in here," he said, and Jonouchi sat down in the spiny-chair that stood at attention by a small desk, rolling around the room aimlessly before stopping and spinning around in a circle beside the bed.

"Having fun there," Seto asked as he came out of the bathroom, dressed in a new shirt and slacks, hair dripping, cleaned up. He smelled strongly of soap- the kind you pick up because it's on sale.

"Spiny chairs are always fun. Betcha never thought about that, huh?"

"Thought of what?"

"Of using a spiny chair for actually spinning around."

"Not like a loon, no. But Mokuba does that all the time."

Jonouchi continued to spin before Seto grabbed onto the beck of the chair, pulling it to a stop in front of him, his chest to the back of it, resting his chin atop the high back of the chair, playing absentmindedly with Jonouchi's messy hair.

"How good is your hearing?"

"What?"

"How. Good. Is. Your. Hearing," Seto asked.

"Um... pretty good, I guess... Why?"

"How much did you hear? How much of what was said?"

Jonouchi didn't answer for a moment.

"...Almost all of it. You think I'm one of the... One of the 'fakes,' don't you? You and Leda and Hiram..."

"Are you?"

Below his fingers, Jonouchi shook his head feverently.

"I don't know. I know that mo- Sadie- I guess you know about Sadie, right?"

Seto nodded before remembering the Jonouchi couldn't see him.

"Yes. The previous Maglightum for the Paladin organization."

"She said something about my being a special kind of 'fake.' That I'm different from everyone," He rubbed his eyes. "You're going to make me say this to Leda, aren't you? That I'm a fake-"

"We already knew that."

"So what else do you know? That I'm the person on the news committing all the murders?"

"Do you know _why_ you're killing all those people?"

"No... I don't."

There was a whoosh of air. Everything was still, and utterly silent.

Jonouchi stood up, walking to the door.

"I should go. See you at school, Seto."

He closed the door quietly. Kaiba didn't move, still leaning on the back of the chair, before moving to walk down to his home office. He sat behind his desk, thinking.

The situation had gotten more complicated. Jonouchi knew, so was he going to tell Sadie? That scientist?

A shrill, automated alarm klaxon sounded from his computer, making him jump before he turned around to see what was happening and turning the volume down.

A box was up on the desktop, with red flashing words-

_**Security Breech **_

_**Mainframe 33149-00027**_

_**Sublevel B**_

_**Computer 89**_

Mainframe 33149-00027 was the mainframe in the lab... Computer 89 was Franz's access portal.

Someone was trying to hack the mainframe, to get into the encrypted information. _Shit._

"Shit!"

Seto jumped up, walking hurriedly out of his office and the front door, waving away Roland when he tried to ask where he was going at such a late hour. (Late? It was only 9 or so)

Wrenching open the door to his car, he put the key into the ignition before pulling out of the driveway and speeding towards the tower.

Who in the name of god was hacking into _his_ mainframe? The lab mainframe?

He doubted it was Franz- Franz would probably be asleep. And Rotwang had no reason to hack the frame-

That left Erich.

Pulling up into the parking garage behind the tower, Kaiba reached across to the glove compartment. There was a leatherman and a gun. He grabbed the gun before heading into the building.

The receptionist was still at her desk when he stormed into the building, looking extremely angry and holding a gun in plain sight.

He ignored her as she stood up, asking just what the hell he was doing with a gun, as he walked into the elevator and pressed the ground floor button twice.

The elevator couldn't go fast enough. He tapped his foot on the floor impatiently, tapping the gun against his leg. The door finally opened with the customary little 'ding' and he walked quickly through the halls and typed in a security bypass code.

The crackling sound stopped and the doors slid open.

Kaiba waked in with the gun poised to shoot. At the computer terminals against the wall, there was...

Nothing.

Nobody.

But a terminal was on, bathing the dark lab floor in an eerie blue light. Binary and lines of coding flickered across the screen busily, the occasional line of code, letter, or number blinking and staying in place. Setting the gun down on the table next to the terminal, watching as the coding filled in.

"Alright, then," He whispered to himself, "Let's see what you want..."

Number after number, code-line by code-line. The coding filled in, blinking after a moment. The desktop blinked up, files opening and files blinking before closing down.

It hadn't been a few seconds before Kaiba began typing.

The screen blinked a few times before shutting down.

Pulling the gun down with him, he knelt down and opened the cabinet that hid all the wires and connections for the computer. Pulling aside curtains of wires and mounds of tubes, he got to a main information-connection cable. It was fiber-optic film, wire connections, and data link cables, all contained in a metal tube. It could easily be opened if you broke apart the base of it, where it was connected to the floor. Sure enough, it showed definite signs of it.

He opened it up- getting it into the same way the hacker did- and pulled apart the filaments and wires before he found what the wanted. Pulling it off a bundle of data link cables, he got out from under the tabletop and took a look at it. It was simple, old technology, really.

A fiber-optic slew of wires, bundled together with small connection spikes and a small transmitter in it. An old hacking device, to be sure, but one of the must durable and effective types that would be in use. It would have been local, someone in the lab, except there wouldn't be much use for any bit of the fiberoptic setup. Why transmit it to someplace else when you could access it directly- a terminal right there? Nobody could get in here except someone who already did-

Kaiba had his reservations about that goddamned _kraut_.

And he was absolutely right.

Erich was going to die.

Again.

Even if it meant dragging him all the way back to those ancient, decrepit gas chambers he watched over so long ago to do it.

Or maybe he would strap him in a chair and electrocute him, the old-fashioned way. He smiled at the thought. That would be wonderful. Maybe he would even have a mock news-paper page made up, like with Ruth Snyder's execution.

Oh yes, that would be so nice...

He was to busy fantasizing, fixing the panel that hid the wires in the back of the little hidey-space below, to notice Rotwang walking up behind him, stopping to look in an admonishing manner before going to work on his _maschinemench_.

The buttery, supple copper had metamorphosed into a clear, shimmery, light crystalline substance- the softest, prettiest, most form-fitting, rigid, and delightfully pliable fabric-looking metal. Where a face would be, there was now a smooth, opaque mask of the same material. It was blank, a canvas wiped clean. Pulling out a tray laden with an innumerable amount of tools, he set to work, getting abjectly lost in his process of divine, never-ceasing creation.

He remembered Joh Fredersen's commission, the girl, Maria, and Hel... Losing Hel... and the anger, directed at Joh Fredersen, that accursed man, that welled up inside him, gushing and grinding through every immaculately preserved vein and artery, every wide plane and microscopic alleyway, keeping him alive utterly defining him-

Until he noticed a person examining the exposed part of his creation's cranium- the processors and speech centers and such. Kaiba was bent over, looking thought bundles of wires and micro processors, taking it all in and cataloging every detail.

"What is it you wish for me to do for you today, _Herr_ Kaiba?"

The simple question was infused with a venomous dose of the same concentrated, rank hate that fueled him.

"What is this?"

"My creation."

"An A.I.?"

"A creation. My creation. A life. And what are you doing here, _herr_ Kaiba? If you're looking for Franz, he's shut himself away somewhere."

"And Erich?"

"What of him? He's gone."

This gave Kaiba a shock- he started jerkily, straightening himself up to a standing position.

"Gone?_ Gone!_ What the hell do you mean, _gone_?"

"I mean he is no longer here. Which is why Franz has shut himself up somewhere."

"Shit._ Shit._ Whee did you say Franz was?"

"I said I don't know. He's somewhere here. Go look for him, if you want so much to find him."

Kaiba took one last look at Rotwang's Machine Man, his creation, uncertain and on-edge, before turning to leave.

Heading down one of the brightly lit, blank passageways reminded him of the bomb shelters and bunkers from wars long gone. It unnerved him. Eventually he came to Franz's room, where he had most likely shut himself, working on something to get through whatever emotional pain he was going through.

He didn't even bother nocking, just pushing the door open and looking around. Sure enough, there was Franz, sitting in the bed, with an ashtray and cartons of cigarettes littered around him. It smelled disgusting.

"Franz."

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

"M'smoking."

"Hurry up and get up, then, I need your help."

"Medicine's in the lab."

"I'll get that in a moment. I need some help concerning Erich."

If Kaiba was unprepared for the ashtray that was thrown at his face, dodging it and letting it crash into the wall and break into tiny crystalline pieces, he was certainly unprepared for Franz breaking down like a small, emotionally disturbed child, muttering to himself and very nearly crying. Standing there, Kaiba listened for a moment, letting Franz relish in his depression.

"Dammit, dammit dammit dammit... couldn't do it I couldn't do it or anything just... damn, shit! Had to fucking leave- not even _die_!"

"Where did he go?"

The doctor looked up at him, a cigarette stub clamped tightly in his mouth. His age and vulnerability was prominently displayed on his face. A broken man.

"I don't know. I have no god-damned idea. He just up and left."

"Do you know if he'll come back?"

"...No. Probably not. That wouldn't be... him if he came back. He's... he's gone."

"Do you know what happened recently?"

Blue eyes went wide. A hand covered the mouth that held the stub, the smoldering cylinder of tobacco fitting between slim fingers.

"_Ah mein gott..._ He... he hacked something- one of the computers, didn't he?"

"How did you-"

Franz cut off the question.

"It's... if he's already dome something about it, it's not important. You stopped it, right? The hacking?"

"Yes."

"Then he'll come back to try again. I'll wait for him."

"Are you sure?"

Franz got up from the bed, wearing a light linen button-down shirt that stretched down to his mid-thighs. Walking over to a clothes dresser, he pulled out a drawer, pushing aside it's contents to pull out a gun- a Mauser, upon closer inspection.

"I've got everything I need," he said, looking pensively at the weapon. "Everything I need. Go on now, _herr_ Kaiba, get your medicine and go about your business. I will see you another day."

Kaiba left it at that.

A few minutes later, he was back in his car, driving home, a small stockpile of medicine in a bag situated on the passenger seat. He put the gun back into the glove compartment, pulling onto the main road, answering the phone when it rand shrilly. He flipped it open-

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end of the line was hurried, panting, out-of-breath.

_"K-Kaiba? Hh-Hey. Need some backup- Dammit!"_

The sound of gunshots volleyed through the connection, a ground out scream and something going 'squelch.'

"What- Leda? Leda, what the hell are y-"

_"Don't argue! Get down here now! Hiram and I, we're in some deep shit down here! Hff- sonovabitch's won't quit-"_

"Where are you?"

_"D-downtown, the old train depot. Hurry your ass up!"_

"Got it."

The line went dead.

The train depot wasn't but a few minutes from here, if he sped, Which he indeed would.

Ignoring the 'No Right Turn on Red' sign, he twisted the wheel as hard as he could, ignoring the protests of other drivers, he hurtled on down towards the bridge. The train depot was a few block over to the east. Turning through some obscure roads, making a left turn here, and a right two blocks down, he left the car hidden behind a building. Pulling out the gun and patting his pants pocket for his pocket knife (Which was always useful in close-range combat) he jumped out of the car and ran towards the depot, and the sounds of violence. Deciding that having his knife in his hand would be a good measure on his part. Gun poised, ready to shoot, he ran around the corner and was shocked at what he saw. Bodies were everywhere- some up on gears, ground between revived parts of old machinery, the floor was slick with a mixture of blood and dust and dirt, body parts and corpses littering it like it was a mine field. Leda was in the middle of it all, bloodied and angry, her shirt ripped down the back, revealing the cross tattoo- blurred at the edges, black veins spiderwebbing out ad down her arms, up her neck and face, hacking fakes to bits with two swords shaped like crosses. Hiram was working his way through a slew of fakes, not even bothering with weapons, just ripping them to pieces.

It only took a few seconds to register, but it was enough for a fake to drop down behind him. None to quiet, screaming rancid breath in his ear, he spun around and hit it with the butt of the gun, shooting it in it's face. Another one tried to attack him from the side- knifed in the throat, then in the gut. Footsteps resounded above him. On one of the cat walks above, a fake was running above them. Taking the gun and aiming it at the sound, he got ready to shoot off a round when Leda lunged beside him, a fencing move, burying the blade in the skull of a fake before pulling it out and cleaving it in two, down the middle. It fell apart in a sticky shower of black blood.

"Head in the game, Kaiba, can't have you getting distracted."

Hiram materialized next to them in a flurry of dark fog. The three of them, back-to-back-to-back, facing down a legion of supernatural creatures from hell. Like the three musketeers. It was almost comical. Off in the distance, behind a curtain of blood that flew up from another shot fake, Kaiba saw the fake that had been running up on the catwalk. Blond, slim, tall... Jesus.

Taking off from where he was, he nearly lost his balance on a slick puddle of blood, following the pale form around a corner, up another flight of stairs and out onto the roof of the depot.

Skidding to a stop next to the edge of the roof, the figure turned, eyes widening in fear. Red eyes, yellow-tinted sclera. Messy blonde hair. Warm-tinged white skin. A scared expression.

Kaiba pointed his gun, praying he wouldn't have to shoot. Not on this fake, not on him.

"Jonouchi... Oh, God, Jonouchi..."

Stepping closer, observing more, he saw a red-smeared mouth, open and panting heavily.

"Jesus christ..."

"Are you going to shoot me?"

He wasn't standing four feet from Jonouchi now. He could smell the blood- it was fresh blood, too... were there hostages? Humans somewhere in here? He couldn't tell- to much dead blood, to many fakes... To distracted. He was getting to distracted.

"Are you going to Shoot me, Seto? Are you going to kill me?"

If he shot Jonouchi, it would be point-blank, in his abdomen. A direct blow to the stomach, and, since he was using hollow-tipped bullets, the blast range wold expand to cause severe damage to his surrounding internal organs and skeletal structure, effectively liquifying his insides. Basically blowing a big 'ol hole in his stomach. Under normal circumstances.

"Are you going to shoot me? To kill me?"

Three... three times he had asked that, mocking each time...

A mock-looking gun, the way kids pretended to have them- index finger straight, with the thumb up, substituting for the hammer and trigger of an old flintlock, pointed up against Jonouchi's temple.

This wasn't right... something wasn't right here...

"Bang? And I die? Because you shoot me? Because you will it so? Because you want to? Because it'll be pretty?"

Jonouchi spread his arms wide, smiling gently.

"Are you going to shoot me?"

This wasn't Jonouchi. Wasn't Jonouchi controlling his brain, his thoughts or actions...

"Shut up. Who are you?"

"You know me, Seto!"

He cocked the gun, the metallic click resounding off into space.

"Are you going to shoot me, Seto?"

Footsteps thunked heavily behind him, quickly, the click of another gun. Leda walked up beside him, a bit behind him to his right gun pointed at Jonouchi. A laser sight played across his chest. There was one snapped onto the gun Leda held, a more heavy-duty model than his hand gun.

Jonouchi seemed delighted at this recent development.

"Ooh, the vatican handler with the leash on her attack dog. Tell me, are you going to shoot me, too?"

"I'm not much one for guns," Leda replies, snatching a glance at Kaiba.

"What're you gonna do, Kaiba?"

"Yes, Kaiba, what _are_ you going to do? Shoot me? What will that accomplish? I'll just be injured, you won't have any new information. Speaking of which" He turned to Leda, cold eyes looking at her with upmost contempt.

"You _do_ know you were correct anyway, yes? But you- you and your hesitance, you can't act, you don't know what to _do_! So you simply rattle off excuses of why you just can't move your pieces across the board to _this_ idiot! All the while we crawl around under your nose and leave you the most obvious trails! You humans are truly _pathetic_," He spat.

"Maybe I'll just shoot you now," Leda's eyes squinted in anger as she fingered the trigger.

"Oh, _please_ do. But then, where would you be? You wouldn't have your so-called evidence, you'd still be a pawn for that _priest_, the replacement, and your useless pope. We'd still be at a stalemate- we are until _someone_ decides to move a piece," Turning to look at Seto, Jonouchi smiled, all blood staining pointed, white teeth. "Unless the piece decides to move itself. What are you waiting for, Seto," The smile got wider when Jonouchi noticed that Kaiba's hand tightened on the gun's handle, his finger so, _so_ close to pulling that trigger.

"Give it your best shot. Shoot m-"

The sentence was never completed. A loud _**BANG!**_ echoed around the depot, bouncing off the taller buildings and the cranes. Whatever was controlling Jonouchi wasn't cracking a smile now as it looked down at the giant hole where internal organs had been. Kaiba was right. The hollow-point _had_ expanded. How it was going to be patched up was beyond him.

Black, viscous, gluey toxins dripped down from the wound, splattering in large puddles as Jonouchi's body fell over the edge of the depot's roof, a full three stories in height and onto the tracks that led out over a large, dry canal. Kaiba heard him hit with a sickening 'thump.'

Pocketing the gun, he jumped over the side, ignoring Leda's insistence that he leave it be, and landed gracefully on the tracks before running over to Jonouchi's body. It was disturbingly kind, in all reality.

Looking closely at the wound, Kaiba noted that muscles had been combined or interchanged with fiberoptic, high-durability micro-tissue, that the spinal column hadn't been severed, but his intestines, pancreas, liver- all gone, nothing left in their place but a hole defined by silvery-grey twitching layers of muscle. He had just blown a cavern in his...

His what?

His _lover_?

And he had probably killed him. He would take him back with him anyways.

Pulling Jonouchi's body up, he carried him back bridal style, going as quickly as he could through the much and grunge that now coated the platform before getting back to his car. He couldn't take him to a hospital, but he could take him to the lab. Back to the lab.

Laying the body... Jonouchi- not the body- in the back seat, making sure it was out of view and strapping him in as best he could, before taking off.

Leda ran out of the depot, Hiram materializing beside her, watching as Kaiba sped down the main road. Overhead, in the dark night sky, thunder clapped and lightning went off, illuminating the sky with purple-white bolts of light. Rain started to patter down. Leda turned to Hiram, seeing him hold her old-fashioned navy coat- bloodied and covered in a number of unmentionable substances- which she gratefully accepted as he held it open for her to shrug on. Stowing the gun and the swords, she drew the coat around her and headed off, Hiram keeping pace with her, grabbing for her dangling hand, clenching and unclenching on itself. She leaned up against him.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

_What do you mean by the right thing?_

"Getting mixed up into... all of this. Letting Kaiba take that shot. Doing the things I do."

_What do you think?_

"I think I don't know. I don't know anything right now- I don't know if I'm right or wrong or if I even believe in what I'm supposed to be fighting for..."

_Whatever you do, I know that you'll choose the right path to go down, that you'll do good. I have faith in you. Now, Leda, may I ask something of you?_

"Ask away."

_If you were ever faced with a... situation like the one on the roof, if I was ever the one you were ordered to kill me, would you 'take the shot'?_

"...I would do whatever would be right, Hiram."

_Even if it meant costing me my life? Even if it meant nights alone or never seeing me again, and never looking back?_

"...Yes."

Moving a pale arm around Leda's shoulders, Hiram drew her into a one-armed hug, holding her hand and leaning into her hair, inhaling the soapy, sweaty, bloody scent of what she had just done.

_You are doing the right thing._

**[Ende ch. 13]**

Wow. Like, wowowowowowowowwww. This is getting heavy. With a new development. Which will be explained.

Thanks for hanging in there so far, guys! It's almost time for this story to draw to a close, so... wish me luck in finishing it! :'D


	14. Feuer

Getting an early start on chapter 14.

Right now, I'm not even half way trough 13, but... this way, I think, the story'll be more streamlined.

**I OWN NOTHING...S.**

**Except Franz and Erich.**

**And their man-love.**

**Yeah.**

**Fake Ch. 14**

**[Feuer]**

**[Fire]**

What most people don't realize, Leda mused to herself, was the Seto Kaiba wasn't like ice at all. He wasn't glacial- cold, slow, methodic, and uncaring; And he wasn't like an ice cicle- still cold, but sharp, and maybe- just maybe ready to purposely snap at any given second and poke someone's eye out. And god forbid that he was like snow- Freezing, gentle, and slowly building up until he was just... _there_.

No, Seto Kaiba was more akin to a fire.

A very, very cold fire.

He was passionate about when he loved, uncaring about what he didn't like, and determined to be something _more_ than just a man, dead or alive, and god damn any thing or any one who got in his way.

And, in the absolute end, he would most likely end up incinerating everything he loved, stood for, and even remotely cared about.

And for what?

He was getting to attached to Jonouchi. She wanted a relationship to grow- to be fostered and loved and cared for, as one would care for a small plant or something else that was homely and required meticulous care. But what she didn't want was him getting attached. But she knew he would.

But he still couldn't.

Emotions fucked things up- turned them head-over-heels bat chit crazy until you didn't even know up from down, left from right, or your ass from your brain.

And Kaiba may be as cold and uncaring as some of the meanest, sickest men to ever live, but that still didn't mean that emotions wouldn't come in somewhere and ruin them all. And they would most likely come from Kaiba's end of the equation.

Currently, those emotions were quite literally going haywire. They had conviened back at the lab, all standing in the vast room. Kaiba watching impatiently as Franz hooked up Jonouchi- or what was left of him- to a number of machines, testing for brain function, electrode activity, nerve functions, anything. Rotwang was still working on his _maschienemench,_ unfazed by and uncaring of the chaos that was ocurring around him. Leda stood with Hiram, freshly showered and wrapped in the warmest clothes she could find, plus a blanket stolen from the bedroom, looking on patiently.

"This is amazing," Franz said, probing around inside the hollowed area with god knows how many medical tools, observing the flesh closely with a loop. "Look, right here-" He pointed out a silvery, twisting bundle of microfilament electro-neuronic wire with a pair of tweezers. Tiny tweezers. Prodding the bundle gently, if one looked close enough one could see that it moved in response to them, before pushing past them to grow, actually _grow_...

"That's great, Franz, but why the hell does that matter when he's dead? Or dying, at least? How is this going to help him live if _wires_ grow," Kaiba glared.

"It's important because he's regrowing. His body is shutting down to make repairs. This is, this is amazing! This is every doctors dream, every biophysicits dream... It's what medical science aspires to create!"

"What the hell _is_ it, then, if it's so damned great," Leda demanded, cutting into the conversation.

"There's a part of the brain that... independent, you could say, form the rest of it. It's on constant autopilot, regulating the repair rates of the body and what needs to be done to maintain it. These people have managed to create an almost entirely synthetic system that's made up of synthetic, intelligent cells. They know when to multiply, when to stop building up an area, when cells need to be replicated and repaired, when they need be maintained, when they need to do anything, and where. If there's extensive damage," Franz motioned to the cavity, "Then the body shuts itself down, puts itself on it's own life support, until the damage is fixed. Any genetic information needed to rebuild missing organs is stored in the brain. As long as that's still there, then anything can be regrown."

"So he'll be in a coma until he's healed," Kaiba asked, fixing his eyes on where an organ was just starting to rebuild itself.

"Exactly. Of course, I imagine there would be a problem of nourishment. I have him hooked up to a supply of nutrients and glucose, since none of us here except for Leda are in any condition to give a hemovourious life form sustinance, and I doubt Ms. Leda would want to do so in her current state," Franz pointed out, moving to clean up and put away what he had been using.

"So we just wait..."

"Like all injuries and sicknesses, time is key. Time and patience. When he wakes back up, though, he should be freshly rested and ready to go."

Leda got up, moving to walk out of the lab.

"Well, I've gotta go, then. I'm gonna be heading out to the airport," She waved, leaning up against Hiram's tall form beside her.

"What are you going to be doing at the airport," Kaiba asked.

"I'm meeting the Romanorum."

"The Romanrum?"

"And the Francorum and Langobardorum."

"Why the hell would they be coming here?"

"Because we need them for what's going to happen now."

"And what, pray tell, is happening now?"

"We're making our move. We're going across the board and breaking this stalemate."

"And then what? 'Checkmate'?"

"Exactly."

"We don't know where they even are-"

"That's why the Langobardorum is coming. Look, you've been begging me to do something about this up until now and now that you've shot your boyfriend to all hell you suddenly want me to sit back and stall when I've been doing that all along?"

Leda walked back up to him, trying to make herself seem taller, despite the six inch height difference.

"Or is it just because you want some more time until blondie here wakes up? You want time to talk to him, console him in some cliche way that makes teeth rot? I've done that Kaiba, it's boring and it makes you want to kill yourself. Now I don't know if you just want to wait around until he heals so you can get laid or so you two can canoodle with each other until the damn world ends, and I rightly do not care, but I do know now that I made a mistake by telling you to get close to him rather than to just kidnap him and torture the information out of him. Sorry about your feelings, sorry that I can't keep away the fact that he's going to be removed, but I can't help the fact that this is what needs to be done."

"So you ignore your vows of only using violence when needed, you go against what your supposedly godly life has given you because I want to be able to-"

"To what? Have someone special in your life? I'm sorry, Kaiba, I can't help you here. He's going to be removed from the equation, I can't do anything about it. I know this is a tough situation," She stepped back, heading back towards the door. "But I can't do anything about it. This is what needs to be done, and it will be done."

The steel contraptions opened, allowing the pair to pass, before closing.

Rotwang hadn't looked up from his workbench, still bent over his creation.

**[Domino City Airport]**

Never, ever let it be said, thought Leda, That I don't have a sense of humor.

Standing outside Domino City Airport, dressed in full military officer's dress, holding a sign that said 'Emperor of Rome, His Majesty Caesar,' and Hiram standing behind her, dressed like a chauffer, with a matching sign. In bold letters, it read, 'Et Tu, Brute?'

See, she was funny. Hell, she was damned hilarious.

The Romanorum could be spotted almost a mile away- brightly colored hair, dyed in a pattern this time- camoflage- and wearing cargo pants and a tank top, both tan, with a hunter green jacket.

The Francorum and Langobardorum would be a bit harder to spot; they looked more generic.

The Francorum looked like a student on a trip- hair done up in a ponytail, jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. The Langobardorum in the military dress of a soldier. They all came from different flights, meeting where Leda and Hiram stood with their signs.

The Romanorum stopped in front of them, looking bemusedly at the signs.

"'Emporer of Rome, his Majesty Caesar- Et Tu, Brute'? That's friggin' hilarious. You get that spot on SNL yet or what?"

"I know, I'm right up there with Dan Akroyd. Welcome back. Hope you all have more fun this time around," Leda looked at the group before walking off. "Welcome to the hornet's nest, my friend's. Let's go talk battle plans."

**[KaibaCorp Towers, Meeting Room 72B]**

"Well, now we're having fun, boys and girls," Leda walked around before leaning up against the giant window that doubled as a wall. "Let's talk strategy. Do we wanna storm the castle or do we wanna burn the whole damned place down?"

Kaiba, the Romanorum, Francorum, Langobardorum, and Hiram were seated around the eliptical glass table in high-backed chairs.

A map was being projected, in mid-air, a hologram of the city. It glowed a sickly green, three sepia-orange points pulsating at three different buildings- One in a high-rise, on the 'rich' side of town, the second downtown, in an abandoned apartment building, and the third in an old warehouse down by a river that ran through the city.

"These," The Romanorum pointed to the points on the map. "Are our three best guesses for where these people are located. We can either scout them all, three teams of two, or we gan get Francorum in there to do, ah- whatchamacallit, y'know, the Star Trek thing- a Mind Meld. We get her in there, dig through his brain, and find out which one. I, personally, and more inclined towards the Star Trek option. What say you guys?"

Everyone except for Kaiba made nods or noises in agreement.

"Of course," Leda went on, walking back to lean over the table, through a part of the hologram. "We need _Kaiba_ here to go open up that lab of his."

The brunette looked up, staring at the now green-lit face.

"Hmm... Come on," He got up to lead them down.

They piled into the elevator, Kaiba pressed the ground floor button twice, and they descended.

Walking down to the door, completing the scans and sticking his hand into the flux metal, the heard the familiar discerning stillness after the lighting tubes sputtered and died, the hiss as the pneumatic locks slid out of place, and the quiet metallic sound at they slid open.

Jonouchi lay on the table they left him on earlier, stomach half-healed now, muscles and organs writhing around in muscle-forming tendrils.

"There he is... Go on, then. Do... whatever it is you do," He stepped back, letting the Francorum step forward.

She pulled her sleeves back, brushing hair pack gently from Jonouchi's pail face, fingers roving gently over the flesh, trying to find a place to settle on it. They finally did, stilling, resting upon his eyelid, his cheekbone. Her eyes glazed over as she murmured to herself, breathing heavily. Jonouchi's body started to tremble before his head snapped back, the eyes open and staring blankly- the mouth stretched open, incisors sharpened into fangs. Taught hands slid up, grabbing at the Francorum's wrist, pulling it closer to his mouth-

Before the Romanorum snatched the Francorum's arm back, jerking the girl out of her reverie.

Jonouchi slumped back on the table, arms falling beside him, eyes closing again and jew going slack.

"That's enough. Did you get it?"

The Francorum looked like she was about to cry. She nodded a silent 'yes' before glancing over to Kaiba, who stood to the side, looking tense.

"Where is it?"

"Th- the apartment complex. It's at the apartment complex. There's a pass code- 1991932. You're scanned a million times before you can get far, and that's just before you get to the hard stuff. The real things that take breaking into."

"What'll we need?"

"About a hundred pounds of plastic explosives and one hell of a lock pick."

The Romanorum nodded.

"Well, luckily, we got both. Alright, let's move. Tonight."

Kaiba looked over, wide-eyed with surprise. A rare thing to see.

"Tonight?"

"What, you got a better time," The Romanorum asked. At he silence, she spoke. "No? Alright, then. It's about...six o'clock now. Let's leave around eight. That gives us two hours to get everything together. Kaiba, this lab has everything we need chemically to make a hundred pounds of C4 and various other ignitable substances, correct? Would you so mind if we borrowed them?"

"Help yourself."

"Great. You go on and get ready, gather up whatever you need to kill people with and meet us out front at eight. That should give everyone more than enough time to get ready and more than enough time to burn the place to all hell. Let's get goin, guys!"

Kaiba turned to leave, eyes hesitating on Jonouchi's still body, wanting for it to move. Before he could reach the door, he felt a hand on his arm. The Francorum was looking up at him, the same expression on her face.

"Mr. Kaiba? I- I need to talk to you... It's important."

"What is it?"

"Jonouchi... his... His brain, the memories and thoughts in it... I, um, it's... there are things I think you should know." Her eyes flitted around, unable to rest on just one thing, and trying their hardest to avoid landing on Kaiba.

"He... he really loves you, y'know, and he's really been through a lot of bad things in his life because of... because of things like this. These people, who created him... They're the type of people who just don't care, who experiment because it's they're version of play time..."

Kaiba kept an indifferent, calm look on his face.

"They did terrible things... bad things-"

"Everyone does bad things, Francorum" Kaiba cut her off, not getting to finish his sentence before she cut him off.

"Don't call me Francorum. This'll have to stay a secret between you and me, but," She glanced from side to side, making sure nobody was paying them any mind. "But I gave myself a name. I's Jo Anne. Call me Jo Anne."

"Well, then, Everyone does bad things, Jo Anne. The question is just who gets punished for them and who doesn't."

With that, he walked out of the lab, going back up to his office. He had a stash of weapons there, carefully hidden, that he could use.

**[-_-_-_-_-]**

He hadn't bothered to turn the lights in his office on, watching absentmindedly as faint light glinted off the barrel of the hand gun, the bayonet blades. All he used. All he really needed. He checked the digital time readout on his computer screen. Seven fifty-five. He didn't even bother to hide the weapons- the office closed early, nobody would notice him walking out the back door.

He got in the elevator, pressing the ground floor button, thinking...

It was an odd thought that this would all be over soon. That he wouldn't have to worry about hunting down knock-off vampires, that, somehow, after years of being on even footing, one of the two organizations would come out on top. It left him with a strangely empty feeling that this would most likely never happen again.

The doors dinged open as they normally did, greeting him to the sight of everyone in the lobby, assembled near the back door. The Romanorum in an outfit that echoed a black-ops uniform- a vest packed with explosives and weapons that she wouldn't need, and a back pack carrying the majority of whatever they would need to injure, maim, and destroy things on a large scale.

The Langobardorum with an assortment of knives, the Francorum- Jo Anne- with hardly anything at all, save a few guns and- of all things- a hand grenade. Leda had her swords and her gun, and Hiram his abilities.

They were all set.

"We get in, blow shit up, and get out," The Romanorum said. "Then tie up loose ends here. Easy Enough."

"Let's go, then," Leda said, pushing the door open and leading them out.

**[-_-_-_-]**

Franz sat in the lab, sifting through notes, fiddling with pens, turning bunson burners on and off, on and off, on and off, until he decided it might lead to something decidedly stupid that he'd better stop. He was waiting, always waiting, for the longest time, it felt.

But he had to some back some time.

Erich had to come back some time.

He didn't leave something like this- he wouldn't.

Franz picked up the Mauser, running his hands, his fingertips over it, staring at it, feeling it, afraid of it. This would be terrifying. He was a doctor, not a killer.

But this had to be done.

Standing up, he walked over to the computer terminals, pulling a chair up and waiting, nodding off into a slight daze.

He jerked awake when a computer terminal beeped on, bathing the room in a cool blue glow.

In front of the computer stood a figure, tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, wearing a uniform.

Back facing him, unaware.

Getting up slowly, so as to not make a sound, Frans padded over and placed the barrel of the gun at the figures back, level with his heart.

"...Franz."

"Erich."

His voice was shaking.

"You knew I was coming back."

He rested his forehead against the back of Erich's neck, closing his eyes.

"Yes."

"You plan to shoot me."

Franz readjusted his grip, pressing the barrel even more insistently against his back.

"Yes."

Erich put his hands up behind his head, turning away from the computer.

"Go on, Franz, shoot."

"No. Not... not like an execution. This isn't an execution. I don't want it to be an execution..."

The hands moved down, slack by his side.

"Then go on, Franz, shoot."

The gun was shaking now, hands tensing and shuddering violently before a loud, resounding gunshot echoed around the space, blood splattering onto the epoxy-gloss floor.

Erich's body fell to the ground, unmoving.

Franz still stood there, holding the gun, feeling like he had just done the worst thing in the world- he _had_ done the worst thing in the world.

Franz sank down to his knees, placing the gun beside him, staying next to Erich's now twice-dead body.

"_Ah mein gott..._"

**[Ende]**

Only a few chapters left... might try and churn them out tonight. Maybe not. P:


	15. Belagerung

Well, we've gotten a SNOW DAY today down south! Which means no school which means it's 2:48 now and I've been a little loopy and incredibly lazy all day, so I'll go on and finish this NAOW.

**I own nothing. No Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hellsing, Metropolis, or any pre-existing materials. **

**[Belagerung]**

**[Siege]**

"Okay," The Romanorum said, turning in the passenger seat. "Francorum found out there are guard shifts. They're only in the primary chamber, they're essentially madmen with guns. Fakes programmed for nothing but killing. Dealt with easily enough, Kaiba should be able to shoot 'em down no problem. He'll go in first. I want Francorum to follow him in, help him with the guards if he needs it. Leda and Hiram, I want you two to work as a unit- that should be no problem for y'all. Langobardorum, you follow them in and I'll bring up the rear. Once we get past the initial guard, we'll blow the door. That'll be the job of the C4. Francorum'll tell you the rest," The Romanorum nodded at the Francorum, bowing her head and passing her a thin holo-plate.

The Francorum started it up, selecting files from a scroll-through map. It was a simple diagram- an entrance, door, and then a passageway leading both left and right, to two different complexes.

"This, right here," Began the Francorum, "Is what we'll see after the door'll be down. We go to the right, that'll lead us to the lab complex. It'll be divided up into different rooms- cultures, storage, tech, labs. We don't know how many of them are down there- Jonouchi didn't know, he only saw the lab complex. We've got no idea how far this goes or how big it is, this could turn out to be a re-run of Russians vs. Hitler's bunker. The plan is simple- three teams of two. Leda and Hiram, Romanorum and Langobardorum, Kaiba and me. We'll get certain amounts of explosives, put them all on synchronized timers-"

"We'll pass you guys out some communicators for that, but only use them for essential information and programming the charges," The Langobardorum cut in.

"Right. Well, we kill what we need to, program the charges, and get the hell out. We'll put charges in the building itself and bring it down over the complex. And that'll be that. We'll take care of Jonouchi and any residual needs after that."

"So that's our strategy," Kaiba asked, starting to smirk. "Go in, blow shit up, get out? Really?"

"You got a better idea on such short notice," Leda snapped at him. She was sitting in Hiram's lap, her head almost touching the celling of the car. She looked out the window when it had started to rain.

"No? Didn't think so."

Fat raindrops dived down from the clouds, combined with a stinging rain and chilling wind. It had grown dark outside, another day had passed. Orange ribbons of lights flashed past, thinning out or disappearing completely for stretches of road as they headed to the run-down districts of downtown.

"The building's over that way," The Romanorum said, pointing over to the right. "Street 32, block B, house 6. Park over in block A, though, that should give us plenty of space."

The Block A building was just a few streets down from where they were. It didn't take them but a second to get there. Reaching the building, Kaiba parked behind it, in the alley space between Block A and another building. Everyone was silent as they piled out of the car and started to walk down towards the building.

Block B, House six, although not all that tall- just three stories- loomed over them, blending in almost perfectly with the dark sky.

The Romanorum passed out guns and explosives, in the end leaving nothing for herself save her share of C4.

"Line up and let's go" Kaiba said, taking point.

The Francorum recited the code to open the door to Kaiba, who typed it into an ancient keypad. With a small pneumatic hiss and a beep, the door swung inwards. Show time.

Pulling out the two bayonets, Kaiba stepped hesitantly into the darkened hall in front of them. He could see it was slanted downwards slightly, turning off at a sharp angle to the right. He followed it, coming to a staircase. The Francorum stopped behind him, holding a hunting knife expertly.

"Go on down, I'll cover you. Everyone else needs to wait up here," She said, turning to check the group behind them.

"We'll call you on down after we check it out."

Leda nodded, eyes flitting around the corridor.

The stairwell seemed to go on a damned long time- fitting, actually. The door had to be a fair ways underground. Kaiba suspected they had walked down three or four floors before the stairs ended, opening up into a large foyer-like hall that stretched on, the door to the other complexes in the back of it. The hall seemed empty, but it couldn't be. He walked out first, talking back to the Francorum.

"Get everyone else down here," he said, grip tightening on the blade handles.

The Francorum obeyed, footsteps retreating into the background.

Up above him, a fake held onto the junction between the wall and celling, watching the man walking through the hall. He wasn't one of them. He had to be eliminated. Letting go of the place where its hands dug in, the fake dropped noiselessly behind him, crouching down to get him from behind, to sever his spine...

Kaiba turned, seeing the fake behind him. It looked surprised, disbelieving at the fact that it had been detected, before a bayonet blade buried itself in the fakes skull, splitting the head open when it was pulled out.

They had come out faster after that, Kaiba noticed. That one he had just killed had broken the metaphorical ice. A crowd of them swarmed around him, all grabbing hands and gnashing mouths and sharp teeth.

Gunshots felled three fakes, the spatter getting all over Kaiba and making him look to the stairwell. The Francorum was there, gun in hand, with Leda, Hiram, the Romanorum and Langobardorum fanning out to help eliminate the obstacle.

A fake dropped in front of him, not even opening its mouth before it was cut in half.

Kaiba barely noticed much of anything else as he fought the onslaught. It came naturally to him as he felt the blades make their way to pliant dead flesh.

The Romanorum used an ability he had never seen before, not even in Egypt- speak a word, and it happened. The words 'Nepalm', 'Electrocute', and 'Explode' were particularly helpful.

Leda cut up enemies as she normally did, Hiram splitting them into ribbons beside her. The Francorum disemboweled them with knives, and the Langobardorum broke bones and collapsed rib cages and skulls.

It didn't take long for them to walk through the rest of the hall, bloodied but not worse for wear, to the door.

The Romanorum took a large wad of explosives and divided it, placing them on different parts of the door and setting charges.

"Stand to the sides and plug your ears, kids, this'll get loud."

They did as they were told.

The door was, quite literally, blasted off it's damn hinges, clanging loudly to the floor and leaving a large, scorched hole in the wall.

"Pair up and let's move," Leda said, pulling out her gun before going into the revealed hallway, to the right. Seto and the Francorum followed, and the Romanorum and Langobardorum checked the hallway before stepping through.

The labs themselves were easy to get to- you just followed the hallway. Finding the rooms were a bit more problematic. They were all unlabeled- doors inset at irregular places along a hall. Take one and go with it, them.

So that's what Kaiba did. The first room was nothing, just typical storage for essentials. The second room was a little more lucky- A lab. The same lab as was in the picture that the Romanorum showed them all last time they met. The CAT scanner in one corner of the room, the lab tables and operating sets in another.

"How much C4 do we have," Kaiba asked, turning to The Francorum.

"About six pounds and three charges."

"Set one of them in here. Then we'll go see about another room."

A slab of C4 was set in the middle of the room. The Francorum radioed in to say that they set the timer on the charge for half an hour. More than enough time.

The next room was as useless at the first- a break room or something. Moving on.

The next room wasn't really a... room. A large tunnel was carved out of it going into the earth, another tunnel going up. Streams of holographically projected data zoomed along it, at the core was a data processor, suspended by connection cables from the celling. This looked important. They set a charge, again at half an hour, before moving to another room.

So far, things were oddly quiet. It was unnerving- nobody had stopped them, nobody had crossed their path, it was just... quiet. The next room they found helped explain the situation.

Inside of it, there were rows of large test tubes, lit in phosphourescent blue light, the test tubes filled with fakes. Either being grown, maintained, or improved, Kaiba didn't care. He pulled out his gun, taking careful aim before shooting the first row of them open. Fluid spilled onto the floor along with water-bloated corpses.

"Let's set a charge and get out of here," Kaiba said, radioing in with the rest of the group.

"We're all done here, where are you guys?"

_"This is the Romanorum- We're good. We found a storage room full of cadavers and a lab. One guy was ina lab, a science-y type. We shot him, he's not getting on up. We don't know where Sadie, is, though, that's a problem."_

_"This is Leda over here. We've still got one room to check- maybe we should all get down here, Hiram and I've got a bad feeling about this last room. Let's all get down here and clear it out. Quickly."_

"Got it. We'll be down there."

_"I see you and Hiram- Lat's go on and get this over with. See you and the Francorum when y'all get down here. Over and out, I guess."_

The line went dead.

"Leda and Hiram have one room to sweep through and then we'll go. We need to go down and sweep through it with them."

The Francorum nodded.

"Let's go."

The hallway wasn't to long- they reached the rest of the group in not to much time. Hiram stood next to the door, holding the knob to open it. Leda clicked the safety off on her gun, looking nervously towards the door. Everyone else followed suit, priming weapons and exchanging nervous looks. Kaiba remained indifferent.

Leda nodded and Hiram, pointing her gun as she ran into the room.

A woman with black hair stood stooped over a lab table, working on a cadaver. It's chest lay open, organs out.

"Did you get me the scalpels, Bertrand? I need the smallest caliber one to get into the veins and arteries without ruining them-"

Leda walked over silently behind the woman, holding the gun ot her head.

"...Who are you?"

"Are you Sadie Hawthorne?"

"Dr.; Dr. Sadie Hawthorne. Who are you?"

"I'm not important. Is it true that you were the previous Maglightum for the Paladin organization?"

"...You're one of them?"

"I work with them."

Sadie turned.

"Well, if you're here, then I'll bet," Her eyes landed on the Romanorum, who stared calmly back.

"The Romanorum. Of course. Still a child, I see."

"Dr. Sadie Hawthorne, you are being executed for crimes against humanity and defecting from the Paladin organization."

Sadie spread her arms.

"Romanorum. Francorum. Langobardorum. Do you think you can kill me so easily? IfI die, a hundred will take my place. If you shoot me, I die happy. Go on. Or give me the gun so I can shoot myself. You fascist hypocrites will only burn yourselves out in the end."

"Fine. Put your hands behind your head, get on your knees," The Romanorum said, nodding to Leda after Sadie obliged.

The shot rang out, the body fell, and blood pooled out onto the floor.

The Romanorum set the C4 and the charge.

"Let's go. There should be about five minutes on the first set charges. We've gotta run, guys."

The retraced their steps, going back along the hallway, past the computer room and the storage room, back out the blown-up door and the bodies in the hall. The Langobardorum set charges in the stairwell leading back up to the main floor and in four different rooms in the building itself, setting the charges at two minutes.

They all stopped a block away, watching as the building blew itself to bits, burning itself down in the nighttime rain. They hurried back to the car, Kaiba speeding away from the building as a local cop showed up.

It all felt... incomplete, Kaiba noted as they sped back down the highway.

It was to quick. It felt like they left something out. Like they missed something.

The uptown lights shone bright as the car sped on towards a hotel, the location specified by the Langobardorum. The three leaders piled out of the car, weapons hidden underneath coats.

Kaiba drove by his mansion, letting Leda and Hiram go inside before pulling away to go to Kaibacorp. He would wait everything out in the lab.

Locking the car, going down to the lab, he noticed how tired he suddenly was.

The doors slid open, revealing Jonouchi's almost-healed body, still alone in the lab. Rotwang's _maschinemench_ stood, instead of laying on the table, pale, thin, and ghostly, still without a face.

Pulling up a chair from one of the computer terminals, Kaiba noticed small bloodstains on the floor. He barely thought about it before siting down beside Jonouchi's operating table and falling asleep.

**[Ende]**

TIIIIRRRREEEEDDD... Been lazing around all day, thought I'd churn this out. One more chapter to go. I'm working on another story besides this one (It hasn't been published yet, still working on the first chapter)- I guess it'd be the sequel (?) to this one- be sure to check it out! ; )


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